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The earliest Christians in Britain were now known to have been Roman soldiers and their families, or officials serving the legions and their organisations in some capacity. There are Christian signs at several sites all over britain, dating from the earliest days of the Antonine Wall, and for over a century before Roman rule ended in Britain, the Empire had been officially Christian. For a few brief years in the mid-fourth century the area between the Walls was once more brought under Roman control, and during that period there was born, into a Christian society, the first known Christian evangelist in our history, St Ninian.

Born in the Solway area, and educated, according to tradition, in Rome, the young Ninian spent some time in the monastic community led by St Martin near Tours. Returning home, some time before 400 AD, he established his stone church 'Candida Casa' at Whithorn which served as a centre of missionary activity carried on by Ninian and his followers. So when we speak of Christianity being brought to Britain in the sixth century, by St Columba or St Augustine, we speak carelessly, and with thoughtless disregard for what was Rome's most profound legacy to our country.

There are limits, which should be obvious, to what walls can and cannot do. Separation over a period of generations can create many differences in society, and even in speech, on either side of the wall which creates the separation. Not until post-Roman times did any new race intrude into the island, adding to the genetic pool of its people. In the latter years of the Roman occupation various raiders from overseas had carried out hit and run raids around the coasts. As Roman power declined the ability of its rulers to provide for the defence of its remoter provinces lessened, until finally the legions were withdrawn from Britain altogether in the year 407 AD. But in real essentials the people on either side remain as they were before the wall was built. If the wall is built through the lands of a single people, then biologically a single people they remain.

All people in Britain when the Romans arrived had a common ancestry, and retained it, regardless of any wall or action by the Romans. Sometimes the Latin writers mention, as a kind of alternative name for the Caledonians, 'the Picts', and much energy has been expended in seeking to answer the question 'Who were the Picts?'. The commonsense view has to be that the Picts were merely the Britons who had avoided incorporation into Rome's empire; and the Britons, throughout the island, were all the descendants of all who had gone before. Some differences there would be as a result of distances and isolation of one tribe from another, and very likely, pre-Celtic influences would survive more strongly in one part of the island than in another. Latin and English writers have led us into imagining some mysterious racial divisions where none really existed. The Wall separated people physically, when the sentries wished it to do so.

A useful corrective to these errors can be found in writing which is neither Latin nor English, but Welsh - the great epic The Gododdin which tells of the ride of the warriors of the Votadini - The Gododdin in other words - to the aid of their British kin at the great battle of Catraeth (Catterick). Kin all Britons still remained, and not the Antonine Wall, or even Hadrian's Wall, could alter that fact.

Not until post-Roman times did any new race intrude into the island, adding to the genetic pool of its people. In the latter years of the Roman occupation various raiders from overseas had carried out hit and run raids around the coasts. As Roman power declined the ability of its rulers to provide for the defence of its remoter provinces lessened, until finally the legions were withdrawn from Britain altogether in the year 407 AD.