AFTER 2,000 years of stretching from coast to coast, Hadrian's Wall could finally be in danger of collapse.

But unlike in the days of the Romans, when the wall acted as the country's defence against invasion, it is not warriors who are attacking, it is rabbits.

Experts have warned that the 73-mile long wall is in danger of eventual collapse, after rabbits burrowing underneath has caused serious damage.

And in an ironic twist, rabbits were first brought to Britain by the Romans.

But whereas the soldiers bred rabbits as a tasty source of meat, the population has rocketed in recent years and there are now about 38 million animals burrowing holes beneath the ground.

And they have have created so much damage that experts now seriously fear they could undermine sections of the wall.

Archaeologists say the World Heritage Site, is "seriously under threat," and they have expressed concerns for its future.

The situation has become so bad that some historians are calling for the reintroduction of myxomatosis, the disease that killed about 99 per cent of the rabbit population from a high of about 100 million.

Some farmers have already begun to gas burrows, in an attempt to keep the population under control.

The wall is one of a number of locations across England to fall foul to the expanding rabbit population, and archaeologists have said that many historical monuments are "awash" with them.

English Heritage has identified rabbits as a "major threat" to the nation's historical legacy, and experts are assessing damage at some of the country's most-loved monuments.

Sarah Reilly, from English Heritage, said yesterday that burrowing had become a "big problem".

Archaeologist Dr David Woolliscroft said: "Rabbit burrows have created such a honeycomb beneath sites that sooner or later there will be a single catastrophic incident where the whole thing vanishes.

"Archaeology is no longer safe in the ground because of rabbits, which challenges a generation of archaeologists brought up to believe that excavation is a last resort because it's expensive and destructive."