YOUNG visitors to Hadrian's Wall have proved that Rome can be built in a day.

Youngsters have been creating their own Roman towns, thanks to a scheme at the Corbridge Roman Site, Northumberland.

Brightly-coloured wooden blocks are used to replicate seven scaled-down versions of buildings that stood on the site.

Children from five upwards can have a go at copying the columns from the granaries, the hypocaust, or heating system, a culvert with underground plumbing and the sunken tank of the fountain house.

The building blocks are proving a big hit with families visiting the site. English Heritage education officer in the North-East, David Walmsley, said: "It's often difficult for children to understand and interpret what they see on ancient sites, and if they don't understand, that's when it becomes boring to them.

"The building block copies of Corbridge Roman Site features are an ingenious way of helping children to relate to the shapes they see in the stones. They can have real 'hands-on' experience of how Roman buildings were formed and how they once worked.