The Great Wall of the North, Northumberland - Hadrian's Wall

Running between Newcastle-Upon-Tyne and Carlisle, the Hadrian’s Wall Bus (the aptly named “AD122” (timetables at: www.hadrians-wall.org) stops at Housesteads and all the major sites along the wall half a dozen times daily between the end of March and October. The nearest railhead is at Haltwhistle, 11km/7miles southwest, from where local buses run to the site out of season.

[1] Head from the car park towards the National Trust visitors’ centre, turning right through the arch after the refreshments counter. The path continues over the vallum and uphill to the museum: follow the grassy rise between the museum entrance and Housesteads Fort on your right until you reach the gate opening on to the Hadrian’s Wall long-distance footpath.

(A) Work on Hadrian’s Wall began in the wake of Emperor Hadrian’s visit to Britain in 122AD. Uprisings were breaking out across the empire, which at that time stretched from Iraq to the Western Sahara, and rather than continue attempts to push their rule further northwest into the wilds of Scotland, Hadrian decided to consolidate his forces in northern England. Stretching from the mouth of the Tyne to the Solway Firth, the new border followed the course of the old Stanegate military road connecting Coria (Corbridge) with Lugucalium (Carlisle). Soldiers from three legions were drafted in to build the wall, which was to be made of stone in the east, and of turf in the west, reinforced by castles every Roman mile (1620 yards/1.48km), and by two watchtowers between each of these. Its purpose was more to control trade and levy taxes than repulse invasion. But only a couple of years into the project, Hadrian’s original plans had a dramatic overhaul. More than a dozen large, front-line forts were added to the design and a massive ditch, or vallum, dug on the wall’s southern flank, suggesting that local reaction to the Roman rampart, and the restrictions it imposed on movement, may have been less than passive. 

[2] You’re now on the wall itself. Turn right (East) to follow the perimeter of the fort, which the trail skirts before dropping down to Knag Burn, where it passes through the remnants of a fortified gateway to follow the south side of the wall up Kennel Crag. This is the first in a line of three distinct crests you’ll cross, the last of which – King’s Hill – holds the remnants of Milecastle 36. As you pass the crest of King’s Hill the Wall turns North (left) and you look to Busy Gap (aka “King’s Wicket”); a short way down the slope look for a stile on your left (at NY798693).

(B) East of Housesteads, the wall dips into Knag Burn, formerly an important crossing point in the Roman frontier, where you can see the vestiges of a fourth-century customs post. King’s Hill, just beyond it, is one of several locations whose name connects this area with Arthurian legend. Another is King’s Wicket, where our walk veers northwest into the moors. This prominent niche in the Whin Sill ridge was, in medieval times, also known as Busy Gap because of the amount of traffic that used to pour through it. Scottish bandits and reivers (cattle thieves) frequently used to camp here, dispatching smaller bands further south in search of plunder. If any of their victims dared pursue them, the fleeing reivers would make a beeline for the gap, knowing that their main force would be on hand to help.

[3] Climb over the stile, but instead of following the trail, keep close to the foot of King’s Hill, bearing right up the rise, following a low bank across the bog (marked on OS maps as earthworks). When you reach a break in this bank, turn left onto the clear footpath, and follow it on to the boggy moorland of Ridley Common. This area is very boggy after heavy rain & the path is indistinct. Though faint initially, the path grows more pronounced as it approaches a conifer plantation (at NY793693; not drawn on OS maps), which it cuts through the middle of, emerging from the far side to continue in a straight line along the high ground, with views over Broomlee Lough to the north.

[4] Crossing the stile near the intersection with the Pennine Way, our path then skirts and passes a lime kiln at another junction, where you should keep straight on.Gradually the trail bends left, eventually meeting another path. Bear left at this junction, and follow the clear path over a gate into the yard of Hotbank Farm.

[5] Passing the farm buildings on your right, you cross a stile beyond the yard to rejoin the main Hadrian’s Wall path at Milecastle 38. Turn left on it and follow the trail uphill and along the edge of a small wood, as fine views of Crag Lough and Steel Rig are revealed to the west. This next section over Hotbank and Cuddy’s Crags strings together the most famous panoramas on the wall. A final stretch past Milecastle 39 and through the long pine wood on top of  Housesteads Crags brings you back to the fort, where you turn right through the gate and follow the path downhill past the museum to the National Trust visitor centre, car park and bus stop.

If any hills were destined to form a border, it’s the line of Whin Sill outcrops marching across the moors above Haltwhistle in Northumberland. Angled slightly towards the sky, the faces of these blue-grey crags stare defiantly towards Scotland, presiding over the rough, bleak expanse of peat bog where the Pennines merge with the Cheviots. Traditionally the realm of cattle reivers and raiding bands of Picts, this historical no-man’s land is where the Romans decided to draw the northwestern boundary of their empire in the second century AD. To keep at bay the “barbarians” who routinely rampaged across it, they erected a 118-km/73.5-mile battlement from coast to coast across the backbone of northern England, fortifying it with the most ambitious structure ever built in Roman Britain: Hadrian’s Wall. 

 More than 1800 years on, the north’s “Great Wall” conjures up more vividly than any other monument in the country the atmosphere of those distant times, and the lives of the men who built and patrolled it. Walk along the ramparts today and you tread on steps worn smooth by leathersandalled legionnaires, gaze at the same views the imperial sentries who staffed the watchtowers would have stared across, and hear curlews and skylarks calling out on the moor just as they did. 

Scott was exaggerating when he said “nought remains to tell of what may there have been”. Plenty of vestiges do survive and our walk cherry-picks the finest of them, flanking Britain’s most intact Roman fort at Housesteads. The Great Whin Sill here erupts into a series of ridges, and half of the route tracks their crest for the panoramas they afford of the wall. The other half loops over the lower, wilder and less frequented heathland to the north, giving a taste of what the Roman border may have looked like to those it was built to repel. Along the way you’ll recognize several iconic vistas, the most famous of them looking east from Cuddy’s Crags towards Sewingshields.

This is country ideally seen under a dusting of snow, or just after dawn, with shreds of mist trailing from the hills, and the ancient stonework lit up by early morning sunlight. Rainy days, on the other hand, should most definitely be avoided –not merely because of the dampening effect on the views, but for the corrosive impact walkers’ boots can have on the monument when the ground is wet

If you track Hadrian’s Wall on Google Earth, it’s the traces of the mighty vallum earthwork which are most clearly discernable today, scratched in straight lines across the moors. But on the ground, the stone defences are what dominate the landscape – no more so than at Housesteads , where they snake along the top of a line of low cliffs. Known in its day as Vercovicium (literally “the place of effective fighters”), Housesteads ranked among the largest of the wall’s fortresses, and is now the most fully intact. Abutting the wall where it runs over a high escarpment on the Whin Sill edge, its ground plan preserves the outlines of barrack blocks, a hospital, granaries, an officer’s house, an army headquarters and even dedicated latrines. Between 800 and 1000 auxiliaries (the second-grade soldier of the Roman army, ranked lower than legionnaires) would have been garrisoned here – mostly Tungrians from Belgium, supplemented by Germanic cavalry. By the standards of the time, the soldiers were well paid, and over the years a thriving township and field system grew up alongside Housesteads fort, where merchants supplied the troops with food, clothes, pottery and other essentials. Although marriage by Roman rites was forbidden, there was nothing to stop the men getting hitched according to local laws, and many did, which would have blurred the divide between civilian and army life. After a little over a decade of use, Housesteads and most of the wall were abandoned in favour of a new frontier further north, the so-called Antonine Wall, erected between the Clyde and the Forth. But with the accession of Marcus Aurelius in 164AD, it was re-occupied, and remained in service until the Roman withdrawal from Britain in the fifth century. During the years after the fall of the empire, much of the old masonry was deployed to build defensive “bastles” to defend against cross-border raiders. Only in late 1700s, when wealthy antiquarians such as local estate owner, John Clayton, bought up farms holding portions of the wall, were efforts made to preserve what remained of Hadrian’s brainchild. One such parcel of land included Housesteads, which explains why its fort and adjacent stonework are in such good shape.

If our little sampler has given you a taste for walking the wall, you might like to tackle the full 140km/84miles of the Hadrian’s Wall Path. Running from Wallsend in the east to Bowness-on-Solway in the west, the route, waymarked throughout by the National Trail’s acorn symbol, climbs through the arable land lining Tynedale to the Whin Sill escarpments of Housesteads, then on to the richer pastures of Cumbria, winding up on the salt flats below the Lakeland Fells. An estimated 7000 walkers complete the walk each year end-to-end, collecting stamps in a dedicated Path Passport. It takes around a week to cover the distance comfortably. Be warned through: the path is not nearly as easy as it’s often described, with a few long stages involving relentless ups and downs. And there’s precious little shade when the sun beats down in summer

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When: Winter, with snow on the moors.