Delivered by English Heritage and Morag Myerscough
In celebration of Hadrian’s Wall’s 1900th anniversary, English Heritage has installed a
contemporary and colourful take on the original Roman gatehouse at Housesteads Roman Fort
– one of the Wall’s best preserved and most important sites.
Created by renowned artist r, Morag Myerscough and the local community the temporary
installation – called ‘The Future Belongs To What Was As Much As What Is’ – stands in the
exact spot that the north gatehouse at Housesteads once stood. The colourful re-imagining of
the gatehouse echos the original building in size and as visitors can climb to the top, the
installation opens up views of the ancient landscape, last seen by Roman soldiers 1600 years
ago.
The brightly coloured wooden placards that comprise the outer shell of the artwork, over a
largescale scaffold frame, were designed in response to the collection of Roman artefacts on
display Chesters Roman Fort Museum, Roman designs and community workshops. The words
and phrases seen across the installation come from Morag’s collaboration with poet, Ellen
Moran and the local community through workshops where volunteers also helped to paint the
placards, following the artist’s designs.
As part of the HW1900 Festival, the installation is open to the public from 30th July to 30th
October 2022, after which the structure will be completely removed and the placards will be
offered to the community members who painted them.
English Heritage’s newly launched creative programme uses contemporary visual and
performing arts to complement the existing interpretation at sites and engage new audiences in
distinctive aspects of the history of key sites across the country.
English Heritage would like to thank The National Lottery Heritage Fund and National Lottery
players for making this projects possible.