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www.doitnow.co.za | Adventure • 25
inTRAIL:
Words by Matthew Holt Photos by Matthew Holt & Mandy Ramsden
Black Carts
22 • DO IT NOW Magazine October | November 2012
All Along the Watchtowers We slogged up towards Green Slack beacon, stumbling across the rutted turf. It was a cold, blustery morning and clouds raced across the sky like sailing ships. On our right, the dolerite cliffs of the Great Whin
Sill plunged 100 m into the metallic blue lake, which rippled uninvitingly. On our left, some bedraggled sheep huddled in the heather and watched us with bemusement. We had 46 km ahead of us that day and the thin stone wall marched imperiously along the cliff tops into the distance. A few years back, a friend had run along the Great Wall of China, covering 4,200 km in 100 days. Being the impressionable sort, I decided to run one too, plumping for Hadrian’s Wall across northern England. This had the merit of being 12 centuries older and just happened to be shorter too. Built in the early second century, this 135 km wall marked the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire and, by definition, the edge of the civilised world. To the south were straight roads, heated baths, and fondues; to the north, illiterate savages with painted faces and tattoos. Well, that’s how the Romans saw it. To the indigenous folk on the other side of the wall things looked somewhat different, with the Romans representing oppression, slavery and crucifixion. Emperor Hadrian arrived in Newcastle by boat in July 122 AD: 177 years after Julius Caesar’s first fleeting raid on Britain and 79 years after the Romans had permanently occupied this soggy isle. Since then, the southern English had largely taken to the Roman way of life, but the northern tribes wanted none of it, rebelling whenever they saw a chance. Conducting a tour of his vast realm, Hadrian decided to put the brakes on further expansion, but in a grandiose manner, by building a huge stone wall across Britain. Mandy and I flew to Newcastle, via Heathrow, catching the metro into the city centre. We weren’t the first to traverse Hadrian’s Wall. In 1801, William Hutton, aged 78, did so from his home in Birmingham, covering the 960 km round trip in 35 days and in the same pair of socks. Nor were we likely to be the quickest, having budgeted four days to complete the trail, whereas a pair of Scottish ultra-runners had romped it in 17 hours.
We started from the eastern end, 8 km beyond Newcastle, at the Roman fort of Segedunum. Historical ambience was somewhat lacking, with the museum’s 35 m high observation tower making it look more like air traffic control. Still, we were able to peer down across the fort’s splayed foundations to the steely River Tyne and deserted Swan Hunter shipyard. Initially, the trail followed the northern bank of the Tyne into the city’s revamped quayside, where we ran beside modern galleries and proud iron bridges from Newcastle’s industrial heyday. The architecture was eclectic and interesting, if not very Roman, with the actual wall buried beneath the city centre and just a small plaque near the station marking its former course. Having left the city and suburbs behind, we toiled up a steep hill to Heddon-on-the-Wall, to be rewarded with our first authentic piece of Roman wall. Some two hundred metres long, two metres thick and halfa-metre high, it emerged abruptly in a field, like a submarine surfacing. In its prime, Hadrian’s Wall stood four metres high and, in addition to the stone rampart, the fortifications included 16 major forts, 80 blockhouses, 158 observation turrets and a three metre deep ditch on either side. These were all built within five years by three legions of soldiers about 7,000 men. After Heddon, the wall disappeared again for 20 km, with the trail following the scar of either ditch. We next encountered it again at Planetrees, where the thickness of the upper rampart had been reduced as soon as Emperor Hadrian stopped supervising construction. Times may change, but workmen don’t. In total, about 17 km of the wall remains, with the rest having been cannibalised over the centuries to build monasteries, castles and farmhouses. The finest section was the 13 km stretch from Sewingshields Crags to Walltown Quarry, where the wall rode along the edge of the Great Whin Sill, rising and falling like a rollercoaster. Forts and turrets perched on the cliff looked out on the gorse fells and dark forests to the north, and it was easy to imagine Roman sentries warily scanning the land for barbarians.
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At the end of the second day, we made a painful 5 km detour to the Roman fort at Vindolanda, hailed as the greatest historical site in Britain. Wandering among the ankle-high foundations, it wasn’t immediately obvious why, but the answer was in the museum. In the 1970s, archaeologists unearthed letters written by the occupying Romans, with over 1,000 having now been recovered. They’re remarkably contemporary, including leave requests, menus, shopping lists, party invitations and one from a mother reminding her son to wear extra socks in winter. The last section of standing wall was at Willowford, just before a steep climb to Birdoswald fort. Then, after Walton, the terrain flattened and rugged sheep pastures turned to vegetable fields and allotments. The saving grace was the River Eden whose calm meanders led us into Carlisle. Beyond Carlisle there was no sign of the wall or anything Roman, although at Burghby-Sands there was a memorial to King Edward I, a.k.a. ‘the hammer of the Scots’, who died here in 1307 en route to give his neighbours another biffing. There’s a constant theme to the history in these parts. After crossing the flood plain to Drumburgh, the trail needlessly dodged around some potato fields until it petered out at a small wooden gazebo overlooking the brown mud flats of the Solway Firth. After the glories of the wall along the Great Whin Sill, the end was disappointing, if not demeaning. Much the same could be said of Emperor Hadrian’s reign. Shortly after leaving Britain, he met a handsome young Greek called Antinous. With his politically-contrived marriage, childless and loveless, Hadrian’s admiration was more than just aesthetic and when Antinous mysteriously drowned in the River Nile in 130 AD, Hadrian was broken-hearted. He spent the last eight years of his reign designing temples in memory of his beloved Antinous and executing potential conspirators, until he died of dropsy, to general relief. Ironically, his hand-picked successor immediately reverted to a more popular policy of conquest and even had a new wall built in Britain, 150 km further north, but it didn’t last with the frontier soon reverting to Hadrian’s Wall. As the Roman Empire waxed and waned on a generally downward path, Britain became an increasingly remote outpost and in 410 was told to fend for itself. Shortly after that, the barbarians invaded and the dark ages descended. FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: 1. Almost there, four miles to go 2. Approaching Housesteads Fort 3. Sewingshields Crags
Having completed our run, we limped into Bowness-onSolway to celebrate in the village pub. Disappointingly, there was no food to be had, since the water supply had been cut by thieves stealing the copper piping. And the beer garden was out of bounds, having been commandeered by a giant hairy pig, the size of a wild boar, which had once been a pet but gone feral.
Waiting for the bus back to Carlisle, I couldn’t help thinking things must have been better under the Romans. •
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1. When to do it: The 135 km Hadrian’s Wall Path runs from Wallsend (8 km east of Newcastle) to Bowness-on-Solway (24 km west of Carlisle). Although you can do it all year round, the summer months (May to September) are best and you’re also encouraged to avoid October to April, to give the trail a break. Most people take six to seven days to complete it. 2. Getting there and back: You can walk it in either direction, though transport logistics make it easier to start at Wallsend. Several airlines fly from London to Newcastle (including British Airways) and there’s a metro out to Wallsend. An irregular bus service links Bowness to Carlisle, from where trains run frequently to London (www.virgintrains.co.uk). 3. Accommodation: There are plenty of places to stay in Newcastle and Carlisle, but in-between options close to the trail are limited. The Swallow George Hotel (at Chollerford) and Twice Brewed Inn (at Once Brewed) are strategically located and consequently popular. If you’re going in peak season (June to September) or over a weekend, you should book in advance. 4. Slackpacking: If you’ve arranged accommodation in advance, you can hire a baggage-carrying company to ferry your overnight bags between your stops. Hadrian’s Haul charge GBP 5 per bag, per drop. (www.hadrianshaul.com). 5. Information: There’s a comprehensive website: www.nationaltrail.co.uk/hadrianswall.