In August 1999 I walked Hadrian's Wall with my brother, Chris. I'm putting this page up because everyone we mention it to seems interested.
So it's a source
of information for them as well as being a reminder for me and Chris of an excellent
week of walking! We kept a video diary and maybe one day I'll put some clips or
captured stills from that up on here. However, because of the video diary we
only took a few black and white photos and a few colour ones. I'll post them up soon!
For those of you that don't know, Hadrian's Wall was built under the rule of
the Roman Emperor Hadrian (117-138). Another thing the Romans gave us! ;). It
was built across northern Britain to mark a northern border for the Roman Empire. As
such it was part of Hadrian's recognition at that time that Roman military
expansion could not continue indefinitely. It was started under Governor Aulus
Platorius Nepos whose administration had begun by the end of 122 and may have
continued under his successor, c127, though there is no proof of this. The wall
runs between Wallsend on Tyne (Segeduunum to the Romans) in the east (just east of the city boundary of
Newcastle upon Tyne) and Bowness on Solway (Maia) in the west. The western coast of
what is now Cumbria was further protected against attack from across the Solway
Firth by a series of coastal forts. All in all the wall is 73 miles long and it is a World
Heritage Site.
Most of the wall has by now been destroyed or buried, though there are still some excellent remains to be seen and some excellent museums, excavations and reconstructions. The fort at Wallsend (Segedunum means 'victory fort') has been excavated and I believe is having a gate reconstructed for viewing by the public. Little is visible under the City of Newcastle, though the line the wall took is generally known. West of Newcastle the Wall became raw material and the foundation for Wade's Military road running towards Cumbria. This was constructed at the order of General Wade after problems he encountered moving his troops west from Newcastle during the Jacobite rebellions of the C18th. At Corbridge there is an excellent museum adjoining the excavation of the Roman town (Coriospitum). Coriospitum was sited on the Stanegate road which ran to the south of the Wall connecting its supporting forts. Further west on the Stanegate there is an excellent museum at the excavation of Vindolanda fort. More of the wall becomes visible as you move further west of Newcastle into Northumberland. There are several museums and excavated forts and some stretches of wall remain to be seen. The most spectacular part of the whole Wall is however the stretch of about 9 miles from Sewingshields Crags just east of Housesteads fort, running past the fort and over a series of crags to Walltown Crags near Greenhead in Cumbria. In the rest of Cumbria almost none of the Wall is visible.
Lots of useful information (and a much smarter image mapped Map of the Wall
on the exploring page) is available at the Hadrian's Wall Tourism Partnership
site.
Walking the WallWe walked the Wall in seven days beginning Sunday 15 August 1999.
Coincidently this was the same week as the decennial 'Pilgrimage to the Wall'.
The pilgrimages were started by J. Collingwood Bruce who did much to further study of the
Wall in the C19th. The first pilgrimage was in 1849, making this years the 150th
anniversary. We discovered about this pilgrimage just a couple of days
before we were starting ourselves, and found out it was starting at exactly the same time as us. We feared
we would be overrun by yomping archaeologists. However, none of them seemed to
walk the wall which was a pity as a few may have been interesting and pleasant
company! We saw their arrival at Wallsend just as we set off.
Doing the walk in seven days is not particularly good going, however, given
my level of fitness at the time and the fact that we did not take the most direct route it
was probably about an average pace for a moderately fit person.
We understand that a route along the Wall is due to become a national trail
in 2001. We saw little sign of this trail overall except for a short stretch in
Cumbria with some nice soft wood chippings to walk on (brilliant!) and a handy
footbridge to avoid Cam Beck.(As an update I also saw a regional news program in February 2000 about how the trail builders were delivering concrete (I believe) walkways to stretches of the wall that were still quite weel preserved by helicopter in order to minimise the collateral damage doen by installing them.)
With no national trail to follow we used Hadrian's
Wall Vol 1: The Wall Walk by Mark Richards. This was an excellent companion.
It was highly accurate and full of useful information about the route, it was
also well illustrated by the author. Perhaps the best recommendation I can give
it is that we were never lost!
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