Hadrian's Wall Path
Emperor Hadrian visit Britain in AD122 and apparently the construction of the Wall that bears his name started in that year and continued for six years. No-one seems entirely sure why the wall was built; cynically it could be argued that it was tantamount to admitting defeat - were the barbarians of Scotland just so difficult that further expansion of the Roman Empire was deemed impossible or not worth the effort? Less cynical historians argue that it was a statement of power; a “grand scheme” to enhance Hadrian’s standing at the helm of the Roman Empire.
Whatever, Hadrian's Wall, when complete, must have been a magnificent structure. Even though most of what remains is ruins, it’s pretty impressive; it has been a World Heritage Site since 1987. The Wall was 80 Roman miles in length (equivalent to 73 modern-day miles), running west from Segedunum on the River Tyne (in modern-day Wallsend) via Carlisle to the shore of the Solway Firth close to the village of Bowness-on-Solway. The route ran roughly parallel with the Roman Stanegate road from Luguvalium (Carlisle) to Coria (Corbridge), upon which were situated a series of forts, including Vindolanda. The central section follows the Whin Sill, in places a formidable barrier in its own right.
From north to south, the entire structure comprised a ditch, then the wall proper, then the Military Way (a Roman road, not to be confused with the Military Road) and finally the Vallum. Confusingly the Latin word “Vallum” is the origin of the English word "wall", but the Vallum here is a ditch with adjacent mounds. In many places the Vallum is better preserved than the wall.
The original plan had been to build a stone wall, some 10 Roman feet thick and perhaps 15 feet tall, to run from the Tyne to the River Irthing, with a turf wall set on a bed of cobbles completing the route to the west. This was a pragmatic solution to the problem of hauling stone a long distance, but the turf wall was later replaced by a stone wall. The logistics of building the 10 foot wall led to a narrowing of the wall to 8 foot, so now there is “broad wall”, “narrow wall” – and sometimes narrow wall on broad wall foundations.
Forts were integrated at approximately five-mile intervals, with “milecastles” every mile and turrets (observation towers) every third of a mile. With a few exceptions, the milecastles guarded gateways through the Wall, and each housed a garrison of perhaps 20–30 auxiliary soldiers housed in two barrack blocks (also providing soldiers to man the turrets). The forts accommodated 500-800 soldiers, with adjacent civilian settlements.
The "Military Road" carries the B6318 from Heddon-on-the-Wall to Greenhead. The road is straight and resembles a Roman road, but it was actually built by Hanoverian forces in 1746 in order to suppress the Jacobites to the North. The road is notable as it runs alongside Hadrian's Wall for much of its length, and long stretches of the road are built on the foundations of the wall. The Military Road thus did much damage to Hadrian's Wall, as did generations of local residents who plundered stones from the Wall for their buildings. John Clayton, who inherited the Chesters Estate in the 19th Century, is attributed with stopping the decline of the Wall and turning it into a tourist attraction. He excavated the fort on the Chesters Estate and from 1834 he began buying other land so as to preserve other sections of Wall. He also led excavations at Housesteads and Vindolanda though (in typical Victorian fashion) he moved many of his "finds" back to Chesters.
The Hadrian's Wall Path runs for 84 miles, mostly close to the Wall itself; in other areas it follows the route of the wall, and close to the eastern end, where the route of the wall is through a not very attractive part of Newcastle, it follows the River Tyne. We chose to walk the path from west to east i.e. from Bowness-on-Solway to Wallsend in late May and early June 2016.
The path is well signposted with National Trail "acorn" signs. Flooding earlier in the year had led to several sections of the path being re-directed, but the diversions too were well signposted, with one exception where it wasn't clear whether or not we were still required to follow the diversion. It's all well described on the National Trail website though. As usual, we carried Ordnance Survey 1: 25000 maps; on this occasion most of the route was on OL43 (Hadrian's Wall) and we only needed to carry two other sheets, 315 (Carlisle) and 316 (Newcastle upon Tyne). We also carried the new (2016) Cicerone guide, written by Mark Richards, which, much to our delight, follows the route in the same direction that we walked it. We'd understood that most people walked the path from east to west, but our experience from the path, and talking to those running B&Bs etc. is that numbers walking in the two directions are approximately equal.
The Hadrian's Wall Path is described as being a good first long distance path. Whether because of this, the fact that it's almost a coast-to-coast, or the attraction of the Wall itself, this was the busiest long distance path that we have walked. Parts of it, in particular the section alongside the Military Road, were rather boring. However, the weather was lovely and parts of the path that others almost write off, in particular the section to the west of Carlisle and the section through Newcastle upon Tyne were more interesting than we'd expected, and we visited some delightful places. It was relatively easy walking (though probably not the easiest path we have walked), and shortish sections in the middle enabled us to visit the forts of Housesteads and Chesters in addition to visiting Lanercost and to walking along the delightful Haltwhistle Burn to Haltwhistle.
Click here to see the photographs of our walk along the Hadrian's Wall Path.
JordanWalks Hadrian's Wall Path pages last checked 24th December 2019.