ENTIRELY true to form, performance poet Hollie McNish shot straight for the heart of Hexham Book Festival’s latest project.

At the inauguration of The Mansio, its 21st century take on a Roman tea house, she let rip: “I wish my neighbour would visit Arbeia/ and realise Britain was never one breed/ So she could stand with the ghosts/ 2,000 years old/ and let the ruins ruin her speech.”

The idea for The Mansio arose over a bottle of wine shared one night by friends and fellow Hexham arts entrepreneurs, book festival director Susie Troup and the founder of Arts&Heritage Judith King.

As Susie says now: “We began talking about Hadrian’s Wall and that sense of ‘borders’ and identity. Immigration had already been an issue for so long, that it seemed a natural theme for this project.

“We had the idea two years ago, but it couldn’t be more pertinent and current now, could it?”

Thanks to a tranche of funding, that includes £187,000 from Arts Council England, and the design skills of architect Matthew Butcher, The Mansio is now a reality and on its way along Hadrian’s Wall.

Arts&Heritage associate Peter Sharpe, who led on the architectural commission, said: “We invited national and international architects and artists to respond to The Mansio brief and received some fantastic proposals; the result, thanks to Matthew Butcher, is a really unusual structure that functions as a listening booth, gallery and tea house.

“Looking like a translucent ghost of a Roman ruin, it will be positioned carefully amongst the traces of the past armies and inhabitants that once streamed across Hadrian’s Wall, people from all over the world who lived, worked and occupied the trading posts, forts and settlements.”

The Mansio has already spent several days at Arbeia Roman Fort, in South Shields on the east coast, and at Senhouse Roman Museum, in Maryport on the west coast.

Next on the itinerary is Walltown Crags (July 25-30), followed by Vindolanda Roman Fort, Birdoswald Roman Fort, Carlisle Castle and then finally Hexham, over the weekend beginning September 17.

Mansios of old were stopping points on Roman roads at which those travelling on the official business of the Empire could take some refreshment and a well-earned break.

In this modern version, the writers will on occasion be there in person to treat visitors to fresh poetry and prose instead, their words inspired by Rome’s most northerly frontier.

The rest of the time, a film and a recording of them reading their work will allow people to plug into the culture-fest.

Each of the eight writers involved – David Almond, Colette Bryce, Kathleen Jamie, Ben Myers, Daljit Nagra, Malachy Tallack, official poet for the London Olympics Lemn Sissay and Hollie McNish – spent a week’s residency in their chosen location on the Wall before writing either the poetry or short stories that were their chosen medium.

Benjamin Zephaniah famously said of McNish (who proved a real hit at this year’s Hexham Book Festival) ‘I can’t take my ears off her’.

That star quality came into its own for one particular party of schoolchildren during her time at Arbeia, when her ability to bring to life the ghosts that haunt those old stones held a party of schoolchildren in rapt attention.

Susie said: “She found a Syrian had been one of the stone carvers there in around 200AD, which is very poignant now given what’s happening in Syria and the problems with racism in Europe.

“The children were fascinated by the thought of this stone-carver and that is what this project is all about – thinking about people who have travelled across borders for whatever reason.”

In the first two verses of The Stone-carver, McNish writes: ‘There is beauty here/ amongst the invasions/ and the fighting/ there is love in his carvings/ the engravings/ the writing/ And while others wage the struggle/ he is sitting/ never harming,/ a Syrian in South Shields/ observing/ feeling/ calming.” And there is beauty in this man, she concludes.

Kathleen Jamie, who is professor of poetry at Stirling University and spent her residency week in Northumberland National Park, approached the theme from a different angle.

She describes Nothing to Declare as a script for a film-poem, which has since been produced by Kyra Clegg.

As she inches her way towards the customs post, the protagonist takes on a myriad of possible personas.

Perhaps she can read the identity papers she’s carrying, or maybe she’s had no schooling and can’t. ‘Around you the land wheels, as if/ none of this was happening. Perhaps/ there are mountains, snow on the summits/ of your childhood, your life-that-was;/ behind you: a river or a burned bridge./ Perhaps you gasped ashore, you who cannot swim.’

Tynedale’s own David Almond opens the book that has been produced from the project. Entitled The Mansio: New Writing Inspired by Hadrian’s Wall, the words within are as varied as the personalities of the authors – and the people they are writing about.

Almond’s short story, The End of Civilisation, is cut through with the baldness and humour that are his hallmarks. The Roman Wall is the end of civilisation, says the ancient teacher that emerged from his pen. Who can tell her what a barbarian is?

The hapless McAlinden answers. ‘Somebody that’s mad, he said. Somebody that howls and kills.

‘Somebody that howls and kills what?

‘Somebody that howls and kills, Miss.’

The Wall kept out barbarians for hundreds of years, said the teacher, ‘it kept out Hell’. But the subsequent school trip tells an altogether different story.

Malachy Tallack, who based himself in Hexham for his residency, brings up the rear of the book with a travelogue that captures the flavour of his own four-day walk along Hadrian’s Wall.

‘From Hexham I took a bus to Walltown, just north of Haltwhistle ...’ History, geography, fellow walkers and weather people his journey.

Susie said: “These eight authors were invited to contemplate the theme of borders, boundaries and frontiers and the new pieces of work they produced as a result do, indeed, respond to the unique and extraordinary landscape and history all around us in Hadrian’s Wall country.”

Information about the dates and locations of The Mansio, as well as details about the individual talks and walks that will also take place, are available on the website at www.mansio.co.uk