Having travelled down to Wark near Hexham, we are preparing for our first walk of the week. This walk takes in the two major Roman forts at Housesteads and Vindolanda and is part of Hadrian's Wall. It's only a 20 minute drive this morning and at the moment the sun is shining but heavy showers are forecasted.
After breakfast in the Black Bull Inn we set off, and head for the car park in Housesteads.
Housesteads is the best-known fort on Hadrian's Wall, and is one of the most iconic sites of the Roman Empire. Perched high on its ridge, the remains convey the spirit of the past, as well as the beauty of the present.
Leaving the car park we follow the path under an archway of a National Trust Centre which leads us down and then uphill to where this famous fort is.
You need to pay to go around as it is National Trust. But we have been here before so after a couple of photos we continue our walk uphill and over a stile turning left onto Hadrian's Wall.
We walk along the top of the wall, heading westwards. This currently is the only section of wall that you are actually allowed to walk on.
This is a pleasant walk and the scenery is great, you can see for miles.
The gateway to Milecastle 37 pictured above. A milecastle was basically a small tower, with a gate and rooms for a detachment of about 16 men. There was one every Roman mile along the wall, with two small turrets (without a gate) in between.
Walking along the path and sometimes steep steps, we pass lots of people from varied nationalities, it seems a popular path but I wonder how many will do the route we are doing?
Now this is the path, you have to puzzle out how many people get through this, because it does not look like an inviting wall to get over, then down very steep and awkward steps before reaching a T junction and we ponder which is the right way.
We decide to go left and head down the road to the next place on our route, Once Brewed Visitors' Centre. This Northumberland National Park Centre and Tourist Information Centre is situated in a World Heritage Site and a National Park, close to Hadrian's Wall. The Centre offers information, an interpretation area plus audio visual.
After looking around, we decide its lunch time so we have the lovely sandwiches that we have just purchased inside with our coffee.
After this break we put rucksacks on and head down the road to Vindolanda, where we will spend time exploring.
Vindolanda is located near the modern village of Bardon Mill, it guarded the Stanegate, the Roman road from the River Tyne to the Solway Firth. It is noted for the Vindolanda tablets - The Vindolanda tablets are "the oldest surviving handwritten documents in Britain". They are also probably our best source of information about life on Hadrian's Wall. They are written on fragments of thin, post-card sized, wooden leaf-tablets with carbon-based ink, the tablets date to the 1st and 2nd centuries AD.
Vindolanda is a huge site and they are still excavating it, there were people working on it that day. :)
The Bath House
We visited the museum which was interesting and told about the tablets. We then at the shop bought a book on the Hadrian Wall trail, to do at another time.
We then decided it was time we moved on as we had been there a couple of hours, so leaving there we turned right and headed down a long track until we met the road.
Looking back to Vindolanda, pictured below.
Awesome road sign, pictured below.
This we followed until we had to turn down a Bridal path passing a farm, going through cow and sheep fields until reaching the main road. We could have followed the road back to the car park, but we decided to go off road and follow a farm track back to Housesteads Fort, before tracing our earlier steps back to the car park.
It has been a good day and we have walked a total of 10.5 miles.
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