Let’s walk the Wall, we said, to raise funds for Words for the Wounded, so I booked onto a guided Hadrian’s Wall Walk with a friend. And then set about training, plod plod. It was as well we did. We joined a small but perfectly formed group led by the intrepid Patrick Norris, our guide for this 8 day walking extravaganza.
We met at the Hilton in Newcastle, and in the morning transferred to Bowness-on-Solway for the start of our adventure along the National Trail. It was flat, gloriously, gloriously flat – from Bowness to Carlisle. Flat and beautiful – lots of bird life, and fishermen who used a Haaf net to catch salmon, a method brought over by the Vikings more than 1000 years ago.
Pretty soon Penny and I were established as the rear guard, walking at our reasonably speedy pace while a few pathfinders strode out at a considerably faster speed. Patrick kept his eye out, and gathered us all up to talk us through the history as we met it. It was such a good idea to have a guided walk or we would have missed so much. We learned about the territory, and the Romans, and the countryside. The first two days were long, but easy. About 14 miles each, after all we had 84 miles to cover if we were to reach Wallsend. Each night we stayed at great hotels, and ate at similarly welcoming pubs and restaurants.
Then, as the days passed, our walks became lumpy, to use Patrick’s gift for understatement. To begin with the wall is sod but here was the start of the stone. There were many examples of turrets and mile castles until we reached Birdoswald Fort. This stands high above the River Irthing, It was an important base for about 1000 Roman soldiers. Then, onwards, and as the day wore on we spent time at Vindolanda Roman Fort, still being excavated. But just before we reached it, I chanced upon an itinerant metal worker. Yeah, really I did. He was waiting for a coach full of schoolchidren who he would escort around Vindolanda.
On our way we had walked amongsts hayfields of herbs, wild flowers, even orchids, or viewed them from above. The sun grew hotter. I grew more like á tomato with every step. We learned how the stones were chiselled to fit into the wall. I learned how Patrick could perform a magic trick with a cable tie, when my sole began to lift from my boot.
On we walked and the terrain became more challenging, with a number of sharp gradients and ascents eventually reaching Winshields Crag and the highest point on the Wall. Lordy it was hot. A glass of wine tonight at the pub, not the small I had been having but a schooner, thank you very much.
And still Patrick was a bundle of information, ‘See the kestrel, see how the Romans chiseled their marks on the stones. listen while I tell you about the make up of the Roman Army. ‘On and on we walked, travellers together now, not a group of disparate strangers. Patrick showed us one of the best preserved sections of the Wall: Clayton’s Wall after John Clayton of Chesters, a Newcastle lawyer who devoted every Monday to restoring the wall.
Well, Clayton was not alone, for the same restoration and care happens today. We met Alan, who has spent 15 years volunteering to keep the Wall and walkers safe. He was also drawing every single stone in the wall on ‘his’ patch as there is no written record. Patrick spoke often of Gary, whose job it was to facilitate passage alongside the wall and around the area. ‘We should see him soon,‘ Patrick would say. But no Gary.
‘Where’s Gary?’ went up the cry. We created a sign for Patrick to tweet to Gary ‘WHERE’S GARY?’ The next day we walked on, Patrick wearing an enigmatic smile. We crossed the road, then back. We crossed the road again, and there… there… Was it Gary!! Yes, Yes. But for social distancing Gary would have been mobbed. Patrick, typically wonderfully, had arranged for us to ‘bump into Gary’. Such happiness. A spring in the step of us all as we marched on.
We passed Housesteads which is the most complete example of a Roman fort in Britain, standing high on the Whin Sill escarpment, with fabulous views. It was once garrisoned by a cohort of around 800 infantry. And while on the subject of views – these were of a pastoral England that we remembered from our childhood: meadows, sheep seeking shade wherever they could find it. Cattle. Hay. Tractors taking in that hay meadow. And another. Again I say, there were orchids galore. Even a Roman altar still in place from Roman times.
Day 8, having stayed at a variety of wonderful hotels, (each of which gave me ice cubes in a polytheme bag for my feet), and eaten at pubs and restaurants, we reached Newcastle. We’d almost made it. The relief, the experience, the knowledge that had yet to sink in. Alongside the Tyne we went, with its bridges. We passed for the last time the four Geordie blokes who had been shadowing us, and in our turn we had shadowed them. We had stopped a man and his son on the third day, as they walked towards Bowness, the father wearing a Macmillan T shirt. They were raising money for Macmillan in memory of their wife and mother. We donated. At a pub we had all given an pound or more for funds for the local primary school. Community lives in the north, alive and well. It began raining. I was humming to The Full Monty, and snapped about to launch into some sort of routine, in the welcome rain, I might add, wearing my sunhat to keep the rain off my glasses. The tomato in an action shot.
We had chatted to locals, and fellow travellers, and one another. We were a gang on a mission. And here it was, a signpost. 84 miles to Bowness, our starting point. We just had a bit to go, until we reached Segedunum Roman Fort on the banks of the Tyne in Wallsend, and the last outpost of Hadrian’s Wall. For almost 300 years, Segedunum was home to 600 Roman infantry. There we looked, listened and wondered, then had a cuppa and a cake. Of course we did, and said our goodbye as Penny and I were to be picked up by Dick.
Will my feet ever be the same? Of course. Have I missed out many things in this feature? Of course.
Such was the variety, the immensity, the history that it cannot be encasulated into one, two or more features. So, tell you what, book on a walk with Shepherds Walks Holidays. Make sure you have Patrick Norris as your guide. Have a look at what other walks they do here: Shepherds walks, and check out Patrick Norris’s Footsteps in Northumberland. He does some great walks in his beloved Northumberland.
Was it a good week, a memorable week? Of course it was.
