Earlier this year, a trend on the social media platform TikTok revealed that, on average, men think about the Roman Empire several times a week. A statistic that was initially baffling until I gave it some thought and realised it’s actually entirely true – albeit indirectly.
The only thing for it then was, at the height of this trend, to point my MG TF northward on the A1 (perhaps the most famous Roman road in the UK, thinking about it) to answer one of life’s eternal questions – what did the Romans ever do for us?
"I took my wife, Tamsyn, with me to keep an eye on how much I was thinking about the Roman Empire en route…
After all, what better time to explore Northern England in a soft-top MG than one of the wettest weekends in late Autumn? It was perfect soft-top weather, ideal for a cosy weekend away for two.
Our journey began at Wallsend (four hours of A1 notwithstanding) – a town whose name I’d never really given much thought to before. Now part of the metropolis of Tyne and Wear (you can thank the Greeks for that word, not the Romans, but I did have a good old think about it), Wallsend has been famous