RESIDENTS of a North-East town could be forgiven for thinking the Romans had returned yesterday when they woke to find that signs had been translated into Latin.

Baffled residents scratched their heads when the bilingual signs appeared at the Metro station in Wallsend, North Tyneside.

Revellers returning from a night on the town could have been forgiven for misunderstanding one sign reading vomitorium, which is Latin for "way out".

The local fish and chip shop is now also known as the pisces et holera, and the public toilets have been reborn as the latrinae publicae.

On the station's map of the town, the 1960s Forum shopping centre has become the fori tabernae and those looking for the town hall were directed to the curia oppidi.

The transformation has been brought about with the help of artist Michael Pinsky's lottery-funded project inspired by Wallsend's links with Hadrian's Rome.

One bemused Metro passenger, Mark Hamilton, 43, said: "I don't know what it is about, but I quite like it. The words on the signs look like some of the things I come out with after a night in the pub."

Newcastle University student Sarah Walters, 21, said: "I think it is great that the town is making something of its past.

"It is Wallsend's greatest claim to fame - we are at the end of Hadrian's Wall and there is a wealth of Roman history here.

Other changes at the Metro station - or statio metropolitana - include the renaming of the pictures-while-you-wait machine to picturae aplificantur dum manes, and the pub to the taberna.

Commissioned by Nexus, the operators of the Metro network, and the Arts on the Riverside project, Mr Pinsky was asked to create a work of art in the station reflecting past and present Wallsend.

His work, called Pontis, is intended to remain in place for three months, but could become a permanent feature.

Mr Pinsky said: "When I first visited Wallsend I wasn't aware that its name came from the fact that it is the town at the end of Hadrian's Wall.

"I wanted to bring that fact into my work so that it was really visible to people passing through. I enjoyed using a dead language - it means my signs cross time as well as the language barrier."

He was helped with the translations by Latin expert Professor Donald Hill, of Newcastle University.