Among the sheep on the edge of the Roman world

One last walk. That is the constant chorus in my mind at this time of year. Surely I can squeeze a last walk before the long darkness begins and the snow begins to fall. I make the player’s itching venture with the hope of landing a perfect weather window for the shoulder season, which, together with autumn crowds and motes, are the perfect epilogue for the hiking season.

This year I planned to direct the Lock Ness marathon last weekend of September. Why not try a walk in the neighborhood? For a long time I had been dreaming of Hadrian’s wall, the remains of a fortification built along the edge of the English territory that the Romans conquered almost 2,000 years ago. Call by the Hadrian emperor who visited the area in 122 CE and ordered its construction, the wall extended to about 70 miles from the west coast to the east coast, among the modern English cities of Carlisle and Newcastle. His remains are now part of a Unesco World Heritage site, and a popular path extends along its length.

Wall Good Things …

As I only had a few days, I decided to make the central half of the path, from Brunton to Walton. After taking a Newcastle train to Hexham, then a bus to Chollerford’s bucolic town, it was just a short walk along the path and a few kilometers to my first glance of the remains of the wall. It was really extraordinary that any trace of the wall had survived for almost two millennia. People had removed the stones to build churches, abbeys, priorities, mansions, barns and other more modest walls in the intermediate centuries, but there were still sections that gave an idea of ​​the greatness of this incredible structure.

It was not just a wall: it had turrets (about two or every 1.5 kilometers) to protect Roman garrisons; Milecastles; strong; and even joined some rivers (although the rivers had changed course during the following centuries, leaving the remains of the bridges on dry land). Originally about 15 feet high, in the best preserved sections, only a few feet of stones still extended on the ground. It is not enough to stop an invading band of Celts, in fact, not enough to stop a sausage dog that I saw breaking the sun, but certainly enough to evoke the greatness of the Roman Legion.

Cows always have the right of passage

Much of the path ran along the fags of contemporary grazing grasses, full of cattle and happy and well fed sheep. The cattle obstructions of paths a little more unpredictable than the fallen trees to which he was accustomed, but apart from his annoying looks, they did not seem to matter if he worried around him. The cattle were certainly not digging cat holes, but since the weather was merciful (and, they have told me unusually) dry and sunny, it was easy for me to distinguish their remains of the baked and trampled earth from the path.

Northumberland Trail Towns

The villages along the path were lovely. The highlight was the Crown Inn, a pub from the village of coexistence in Chollerford, as well as the inn twice just after the strong Roman of Houstesteads in Bardon Mills. Walton was a beautiful and friendly town, which I think a British person could describe as «ordered as a pin,» even the unused signs were prepared with «Cortés Notice» and concluded with «Thank you.»

I really wanted to see the picturesque tree in Sycamore GAP, which appears memorably in Robin Hood: Prince of ThievesBut I had not done my homework: the tree was cut in 2023, in what the prosecutors called an «act of deliberate and meaningless destruction» by two friends of Carlisle. They received four -year prison sentences, and in the following years, some outbreaks have begun to grow from the touches of the tree.

In general, it was a lovely walk (or walk? I would have continued walking to Carlisle if I did not have to place it on the previously Roman grass of England and head to the Scottish highlands for my marathon. Someday, I will have to return to do the whole path; Luckily, the Romans built that wall to last.

This website contains affiliate links, which means that the walk can receive a percentage of any product or service that you buy using the links in the items or ads. The buyer pays the same price that would do it differently, and his purchase helps to support the continuous objective of the walk to address his quality backpack advice and information. Thanks for your support!

For more information, visit the page about this site.