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"The climate is wretched with frequent rains and mists but there is no extreme cold... The soil will produce good crops except olives, vines and other plants which usually grow in warmer lands. Other plants are slow to ripen though they shoot quickly; both facts being due to the same cause, the extreme moistness of the soil and atmosphere." So wrote Tacitus in AD 98, a decade or two before the Romans built a fort and port in what is now Maryport, to the west of Hadrian's Wall. The Roman museum today has a quite extraordinary collection of Roman altars, pre-Christian relics, which thanks to being discarded (and used by the Romans as part of the foundation for a huge wooden structure) are in remarkably good condition. They look better than most of the inscribed stones you see in modern high streets. Mostly they commemorate Roman gods, though there is one praising Vulcan, a deity honoured by blacksmiths and this is the only known altar dedicated to the god found in Britain. As well as the Roman pantheon, there is a dedication to Setlocenia (a Celtic deity).
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