Much has been said about the highlights of Hadrian’s Wall, particularly the area around Housesteads and Vindolanda, and these are indeed best-preserved sections so should be top of the list for anybody who has not visited before. Rather than add to this, I thought I would offer some insight into the more obscure sites for those in the area for longer. Starting at the easternmost edge, the fort of Arbeia guarded the mouth of the River Tyne and features some original foundations as well as a reconstructed gatehouse and barracks. Arbeia is close to South Shields metro station, which has regular connections into the centre of Newcastle via Bede station, from which it is a short walk to the tentative WHS of Jarrow Monastery. Across the Tyne to the north, the fort of Segedunum marks the start of the cross-country Hadrian’s Wall long distance walking path but is less impressive as only the shape of the foundations survives with few original remains but the signage at the nearby Wallsend metro station is in both English and Latin, which offers some amusement. Depending on who you ask, the area is perhaps more famous for Wallsend Boys Club, the football (soccer) club that produced such great players as Alan Shearer. Further west, but still within the urban sprawl of Newcastle, a small shrine (see attached picture), section of vallum crossing, and parts of the wall can all be seen in the area of Benwell. Whilst not the most impressive remains, it is quite surreal to see fragments of a nearly 2000-year-old border fortification now surrounded by the semi-detached houses of English suburbia.

The farmland of southern Northumberland and Cumbria is dotted with occasional stetches of wall in various states of repair as well as the vallum earthworks, many free to access in the open countryside. The Hadrian's Wall Path provides a public right of way along the whole length of the wall, some 135 kilometres from coast to coast. Most of the wall was slowly dismantled following the Roman withdrawal from Britain, with stones going to build medieval farmhouses, dry stone walls and churches. The largest scale destruction was carried out in the 18th Century to build General Wade’s military road to move troops up to Scotland to crush the Jacobite uprisings. It was a clerk and laywer from Newcastle, John Clayton, who began the first efforts to save what was left of the wall in the 19th Century, buying land from farmers to stop continuing extraction of the Roman stone and began various archaeological excavations. Today, the various major forts that Clayton preserved are well-signposted from the roads and many are also served by the AD122 bus as others have mentioned. Further west, the area between the villages of Lanercost and Gisland, the latter reachable by the 185 Tynedale Links bus, near Birdoswald fort features the tallest and longest continuous surviving parts of the wall, including the impressive remains of a bridge abutment at Willowford Farm. Lanercost itself is home to a large 12th Century abbey built from the stones of the nearby wall. To the north at Hare Hill is the westernmost remains of the wall still visible above ground. Some way south of the path of the wall, and close to Brampton railway station, the written rock of Gelt features Roman engravings in the location where stone for the wall was quarried but the writing is difficult to see amongst the vegetation from the riverside path and is quite high above head height so more of academic interest than worth seeing in person.

There are various components inscribed westwards through Carlisle, reaching the coast at Bowness-on-Solway. However, there is very little to be seen above ground from Hare Hill onwards so these are best skipped unless keen to walk the whole length of the wall that was. The southernmost location for Hadrian’s Wall is further west still with the remains of a bath house at Ravenglass, again conveniently close to a railway station and offering the opportunity for a double tick being inside the core zone of the English Lake District. I have yet to see the German limes and have had only one encounter with the Antonine Wall, visiting Rough Castle just outside of Falkirk some years ago and recall the earthworks being quite imposing, larger than most of the vallum that can be seen along Hadrian’s Wall. The 439 individual components of this site seem excessive, with many of those inscribed having no visible remains and being of interest only to archaeologists. Perhaps a more selective approach would have been preferable, if only to make maps of WHS locations less crowded. That minor complaint aside, those parts of Hadrian’s Wall that do survive are quite magnificent and, at nearly two millennia old, they are a remarkable testament to the power and scale of the Roman Empire that it could build and maintain fortifications in such difficult and distant terrain from the windswept moorland of northern England and Scotland to the deep dark forests of Germania and Dacia and the (not-yet-inscribed) deserts of Africa and Arabia.