Hadrian's Wall From Carlisle to Newcastle On Tyne

This was our second walk organized by Hillwalk Tours and it went very well. I had cycled along the route of the Roman wall on an Easter break from Queen's University in 1968. After a study period on the Isle of Arran, my way home involved riding southeast over the highest paved road in Britain, staying in the hostel at Durham Cathedral, and visiting the Roman ruins on Hadrian's Wall. It was my first experience of Roman military construction and it impressed me enough to encourage a more thorough revisit in 2025.

Starting in Carlisle we rapidly left the urban landscape to walk through fields and farms before actually meeting the Wall. The nicest lodging of the trip was a converted Big House with very convivial hosts.

At first the Wall was mostly low masonry but it soon became more militaristically impressive.

Not all the ruins were Roman. This section of the border between England and Scotland was notorious for raids and skirmishes over the centuries. We encountered quite a few fortified homes and manors.

As the land rose and the Wall followed the bluffs and cliffs on its way to the eastern coast, we encountered more climbing and more impressive lengths of fortifications as well as actual Wall Forts.

We also encountered the stump of the Robin Hood Tree cut down last year by local nobodies. I was too disheartened to take a closeup picture but did capture the tree-less gap in the ridge line.

Two of the major fortifications are still impressively complex. Housesteads has lots of intact structures whose cut stones have not all been carried away to make walls and comfortable farm houses.