Do As the Romans Do: Trekking Hadrian’s Wall Path

June 2, 2022

The British Isles are full of many historic sites, from monuments, to castles, to battlefields. One of its most famous attractions is an ancient wall, built by the Romans 1,900 years ago. The sheer scale of the wall was mind-boggling for its time: a 73-mile stone and turf structure, averaging about 15 feet high, and built over seven years. Up to 15,000 men and two million tons of stone were used in its construction. Known as Hadrian’s Wall, it was also the location of our second trek.

Hadrian ruled as ancient Rome’s emperor for 21 years, from 117 to 138 AD. To mark the northern portion of the Roman Empire at the time, fortifications were built in a line from east to west. These included milecastles (small forts) each mile, two turrets (or watchtowers) in between each milecastle, and 16 forts. Hadrian’s Wall became a World Heritage Site in 1987. Today, much of the wall is gone, with its best preserved portions lying in the rugged crags in the center of the country.

The 84-mile Hadrian’s Wall Path travels along the ancient border, providing glimpses into portions of the wall that have been preserved, as well as the milecastle, turret, and fort remains. In doing our pre-hike research, we found a two-minute animated English Heritage video that provided a great overview on the history of Hadrian’s Wall.

We not only wanted to walk the entire trail, but to make our hike into a true coast-to-coast trek across England. So, by adding an option from the book I purchased, we hiked seven more miles at the path’s eastern end to create a 91-mile trek over seven days.

Our trekking route on Hadrian’s Wall Path

Starting the Trek along the Estuary Coast

After a train and bus journey north, we arrived in the village of Bowness-on-Solway to begin our trek. We had a little time on the afternoon before we began hiking to explore the area. Much of Bowness sits on the site of the ancient Roman fort Maia.

Down a side street stood St Michael’s church. Dating from the 12th century, the church was constructed with some of the stones from the original Roman wall.

Hadrian’s Wall Path began at a small structure, located at the approximate point that the Roman wall met the Irish Sea. We posed there for a photo before venturing to the beach to pick up a small stone. Our plan was to take the stone from our starting point at the Irish Sea to the North Sea at our trek’s end.

Posing at the beginning of the trek; Picking up a stone at the Irish Sea to deposit in the North Sea

The next morning we began our trek, walking eastward from Bowness. The path took us along the Solway Firth estuary adjacent to the Solway Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. 

The trail can be walked in either direction, but the book suggested that a west to east course would put the prevailing wind at our backs. Hiking eastward was already paying off, as we had winds up to 20 miles per hour at our backs during the entire stage.

The 15.3-mile stage was relatively flat, but cold with the wind and some occasional rain. After about four miles of hiking we began a three-mile traverse of the Burgh Marsh. We had to consult a tide table to ensure that we would not be walking during any high tides.

After we completed the hike through the marsh, we entered the town of Burgh by Sands. It was here that King Edward was brought after dying in the marsh in 1307 while preparing for a battle against the Scots. We paid a visit to their St. Michael’s town church, where the king lay after his death. The Roman Fort Aballava was built on the town site, and some of its stones were used to build St. Michael’s in the 12th century.

We had one more town to walk through a couple of miles later. Beaumont was the home of St. Mary’s Church, originally built in 1296. It is the only church to stand right on the line of the ancient Hadrian’s Wall.

A short time later the path joined the River Eden, and we followed it for the remainder of the day to the city of Carlisle, where we spent our first night.

A Short Stage to Join the Roman Military Road

When planning each night’s accommodations along a trek, the goal is to keep the daily mileage as consistent as possible. In the case of this hike, the villages and towns were not evenly spaced along the route. That meant that we had stages of differing lengths to complete. Our second day was on the short end, with a distance of only 8.3 miles. So we slept in and took our time hiking.

One thing that we enjoyed while walking were the “Honesty Boxes” that we passed on the trail. These consisted of self-service locations with selections varying from fresh cakes and cookies, to packaged items, to instant coffee or tea. Most just asked for an “honest” donation of a one pound coin in return.

Visiting the various honesty boxes on the trail

While we were not at the preserved sections of the wall just yet, toward the end of the day we came to the site of the old Roman military road, which was located to the south of the wall’s base.

Reaching the Preserved Wall and the Scenic Crags

While we enjoyed the shorter day on Day 2, the next stage would be much longer. Our Day 3 distance was 18.7 miles, so we left by 7:30 am to begin our hike. During the first two days we encountered many more people than we had seen on our previous trek. So we enjoyed the solitude from starting earlier as we walked along some hillsides with nice views toward the Lake District and Pennines Mountains in the south.

In the middle of the morning, we came to our first sections of the wall. The structures were numbered by the Roman mile, with the eastern terminus being mile zero. (One Roman mile equals 0.92 of a contemporary mile.) The turrets had (a) and (b) designations, since there were two per mile.

A short distance away we came to the first fort on our trek, called Birdoswald. Inside was a courtyard with a cafe and restrooms, so we ordered some hot tea and took a short break there.

When the Romans built the wall they had to construct bridges across numerous streams and three major rivers. We came to the remains of the wall intersection with a bridge over the River Irthing.

A short time later we began a series of rolling hill ascents and descents on stone stairs.

In this rugged area were the better preserved sections of the wall because the terrain had made it more difficult to remove the stones over time.

The trail entered Northumberland National Park and a series of steep crags to negotiate. This consisted of abrupt climbs and descents.

It was difficult to contend with so much elevation gain and loss at the end of a long stage, but the stunning views made up for the effort.

At one point, I looked south to see our evening’s hotel far below us.

After completing several sharp ascents and descents through the crags, it seemed that the section would never end. We were tired, but just kept moving.

After one final ascent to the high point of the trek on the Whin Sill cliff at 1,130 feet, we were done with the day’s climbing. The path went downhill to meet the road leading to our hotel, located in a pub/brewery. We were happy to arrive, shower, and enjoy a nice dinner before turning in for the night.

Trekking through the Best Sections of the Wall

After the long stage the previous day, we had a more manageable distance of 12 miles to complete when we left in the morning. The first half of the stage would take us through more of the crags. But we were now hiking along some of the finest preserved Roman wall.

Soon after beginning our walk, we arrived at the remains of a milecastle. Another early start meant that we were the only ones on the trail. So we took a moment to savor the view.

Just a short distance away was an area known as Sycamore Gap, where a large tree that is hundreds of years old stood next to the trail. Again, we considered ourselves lucky because there were few other people around us as we took in the scene.

The trail continued to climb and descend, with fabulous views from the top.

After about three miles we reached Housesteads Fort. We stopped to buy a coffee at the cafe and admire the ruins around us.

Back on the trail, we continued through the crags. Sometimes it felt like we were looking at the Great Wall of China ahead of us, as we could see the wall continuing up and down the hillsides to the east.

Finally the climbs began to mellow, and we left the crags for good.

When we reached some flat trail we took a lunch break by the side of the path.

Later in the day we came to a temple that had been built by the Roman soldiers near the Carrawburgh Fort. Soon after, we ended our stage in the town of Chollerford.

Another Long Day in the Rain

As we continued east, we left the best preserved sections of the wall behind. The terrain would be flatter, but we had our longest stage of the trek – 19.3 miles. Soon after beginning our hike, we came across another section of the wall.

We also encountered another fort site. Instead of stone, the site only consisted of grass and dirt on top of a hill. Most of the rest of the stage traveled through of a series of farms, and we weaved in and out of cow and sheep pastures.

There was light rain falling in the morning and the temperature was in the low 50°s F. We wore our rain jackets and rain pants, so we kept dry and warm as we walked.

The trail took a detour around some downed trees into a welcome forest area. It was one of the prettiest sections that we had seen during the entire trek.

The rain stopped for a time, but we soon saw signs of another storm coming. As we walked, we witnessed several farmers aggressively moving their sheep off the land before more significant rain came.

Even though we had a long day of hiking, we decided to stop and take a lunch break at a pub located at about the halfway point of our stage. After a warm bowl of soup and a hot meal, we were ready to venture out into the rain storm that began while we ate.

Similar to our previous Cotswold Way trek, we needed to negotiate through gates and stiles as we moved between forests and fields. On this hike, there were many more stiles, which used ladder-like stone or wooden stairs to climb over fences. In one quarter-mile section I counted seven stiles alone that required climbing over.

Climbing over stiles on the trail

We also had several cow encounters. Even though we saw no calves with their mothers (and always made wide berths around any herds), a cow began to charge at me in one field. Fortunately, I held my ground and it backed down.

In another field just outside the town of Heddon-on-the-Wall, several cows blocked the narrow trail before the exit gate, giving us nowhere to go. We tried to get the cows to move, but they wouldn’t budge. So we quickly weaved our way through them and got to the gate with no incident. Later, we surmised that Darren’s bright red rain jacket may have triggered some of the aggressive behavior we had witnessed.

After leaving Heddon-on-the-Wall, we descended steeply down on a former railway path to the valley floor and the River Tyne. We spent the night at a pub/brewery on the western outskirts of Newcastle.

Reaching Newcastle and the Official Trail’s End

Since we were in the Newcastle urban area, we put our trekking poles away for the final stretch of the hike on bike trails. We had 12.2 miles to go to the trail’s official end at the Segedunum Fort in the town of Wallsend. But first we needed to hike through central Newcastle on a day that had significant rain in the forecast.

Even with all the population density, there was one more opportunity to view a section of Hadrian’s Wall. We diverted from the path for a half-mile each way to find the remains of a turret right in the middle of a neighborhood.

Back on the main trail, the rain fell and intensified as we reached downtown Newcastle.

We spied an outdoor pub with a large covered area (and space heaters), so we ducked in there for a lunch break while the rain poured around us. We also split a congratulatory beer (with only 4% ABV), while we waited for the weather to improve.

After about an hour we decided to start up again. Even though it was still raining, we moved quickly down the path, dodging the areas of the trail that had flooded.

The final five miles went by quickly, as the rain finally let up. We arrived at the official end of Hadrian’s Wall Path at Segedunum Fort at about 3:15 pm. A nice sign had been constructed just outside the fort’s entrance to take a completion photo.

We went inside the fort to buy a completion pin and were congratulated by the staff. They suggested we climb to the top of the eight-story tower to view the fort site.

After we explored the fort’s museum, we walked two blocks to a metro station. We rode the train about 15 minutes back to Newcastle and our hotel for the night.

A Hike and Ferry Ride to a Fort and the Coast

Even though we had completed the 84-mile Hadrian’s Wall Path hike, we wanted to walk the additional seven miles to the North Sea to make our effort a true coast-to-coast trek. We left the hotel at mid-morning on a sunny day and took the metro back to Segedunum Fort. From the fort, we followed a bike path east that eventually took us back down to the River Tyne.

At the river we needed to take a short passenger ferry ride across to its south bank.

After leaving the ferry, we walked a mile further to the Arbeia Fort. Built by the Romans as a stand-alone maritime supply structure for the wall, it also guarded the River Tyne and the North Sea. The fort had a nicely reconstructed gate.

From the fort it was just a short walk to the North Sea coastal sand and The Eye sculpture.

Our 91-mile coast-to-coast trek now finished, we took a picture at the sculpture.

There was one final task. We walked down to the sand, and Darren threw the stone we had picked up at the Irish Sea into the North Sea to signify our coast-to-coast completion.

We found our Hadrian’s Wall Path trek to live up to its historical significance, as we saw many examples of Roman ingenuity in the milecastle, turret, and fort restorations and remains. At times it was hard to believe that such a large-scale structure was built 1,900 years ago.

As we crossed England, we marveled at the coastal scenery, rolling countryside, and walks along the River Eden in the west and the River Tyne in the east. And the views from the crags in the middle of the country were amazing. We felt fortunate to have had the best weather of the hike on those most scenic days.

Next, we head north for another coast-to-coast trek across Scotland on the John Muir Way.