The Wee Wall Walk

  Our morning started with meeting this fabulous Shaun the Sheep outside Newcastle Cathedral as we arrived for Morning Prayer. He’s one of many around the city raising money for the Children’s Hospice – you may remember a similar project in Brum a few years ago?    After the service we chatted to the priest who had been leading worship – he is the lead for the Lantern Initiative run by the Cathedral. High in the tower is a lantern that used to be lit to guide ships safely up the Tyne – a real beacon of hope and safety for all. The Lantern Initiative seeks to make the Cathedral once more a beacon of hope for the community – all the community including those who are often forgotten – the homeless and the prisoner. One very practical thing it does is in the Cathedral café. It is staffed by ex prisoners and some others on day release from prison – real jobs and real experience. All the bakery goods are purchased from the prison bakery where inmates are trained in new skills that will help

  After a wonderful evening meal, a comfortable bed and a fine breakfast we are ready for the final stage. A taxi takes us back to the Three Tuns Pub in Heddon on the Wall for us to resume the walk. We begin by seeing a surprisingly long section of surviving wall remains – we are told this is the last section we will see on our walk and no one is quite sure why it hasn’t been plundered over the years. Clearly it’s well known as we had to wait for a coachload of overseas tourists to move before we could get the photo below. In fact there was one more tiny section still to be found - but that was still 16 miles away. Our route took us through the village of Heddon – very much a transition village between rural Northumberland and the ever advancing urban sprawl of Newcastle – and down to the banks of the Tyne. The path continued on a greenway (the trackbed of an old railway line) towards the city centre. Along the way we met two ladies walking their dog who spoke (amongst other things) ab

As we left the hotel this morning we met the Hadrian’s Haul guy who has been moving our bags from place to place in his rather funky van…   ….before crossing the river to look back at the hotel where we had stayed – such a wonderful setting! Then on, up the hill on the far side of the river valley, and some wonderful views in the morning sunshine.   We didn’t see much of the Wall today (most of it was reduced to rubble to provide the hardcore for a road built along its route in the mid 1700s). However, one section which has survived shows that even the Romans sometimes changed their spec to cut costs – the initial width of the Wall was around 10 feet wide, but from this point onwards it was reduced to around 8 feet. You can see it in the photo below.   A little further on we passed a tiny church dedicated to St Oswald at Heavenfield. This was the site where Oswald, the heir to the Northumbrian throne, defeated the Mercian king Penda, and reunited the two halves of Northumbrian kingdom.

  After 14 miles of hard walking we were very glad to arrive at our hotel just in time for the England Chile match!   Another good breakfast made even better by it being the first time Marmite had been an option. Worth an extra star for the hotel in itself I reckon! Shame the packed lunch they provided let them down (stale bread, tasteless cheese, and salt and vinegar crisps that tasted more like cheese and onion). The pub did brew their own beer though – I had an excellent bitter but wasn’t brave enough to try the salted caramel or the bubblegum sour beer options!    For the first 4 or 5 miles the weather was dreich – raining half the time and like walking through clouds for the rest. Which was a shame because I suspect this part of the walk has the best views. It also passes the most famous photo opportunity on the whole walk at sycamore gap (our header picture today). It was very up and down along a line of crags, walking alongside the remains of the wall just a couple of feet from

  Definitely the best breakfast so far at last night’s B&B, and we set off to rejoin the Wall Walk in good time. Down the hill into the village, across the river, up the hill on the other side to where we’d left the path yesterday – to be met by a sign announcing there was a ‘temporary diversion.’ Which then took us back down through the village, and along a track almost opposite where we had been staying! Note to selves – always check where the next day’s path will begin….   Almost as soon as we began walking we could see the ‘edge’ along which the Wall winds its way across the countryside. The guide book tells us these dramatic cliffs are the result of volcanic activity hundreds of millions of years ago, resulting in very hard rock which has survived Ice Ages and the like with minimal erosion.    This is the iconic, picturesque section of the Wall. Because the stone used to build it is so hard, there is a very clear Wall to follow, and the views to both north and south are expans

  A wonderful day’s walking over undulating pastureland climbing gradually as we moved further away from the coast. Beautifully sunny with just enough breeze to stop us getting too warm (apologies if it’s been raining in Shirley!). Great views behind us of the Lakeland fells, to our right of the North Pennines and to our left of the Border country.    Before leaving Brampton we visited the Parish Church where we saw the Burne Jones windows which, unlike Birmingham Cathedral, are not obscured by scaffolding. Then a 3 mile walk along paths that are clearly not used very often before rejoining the wall path where we left it in Newtown.    After about 5 miles we finally caught a glimpse of some of the wall! Up till now the far western sections had been turf walls which had disappeared, then sections where stones from the wall had been repurposed to build houses, barns, churches and even Lanercost Priory (re-use and recycle clearly has a long pedigree!). The wall became more evident over th

Today we said goodbye to Carlisle and headed east following the line of the Wall. This area has been farmed for hundreds of years and there are no obvious signs of the Romans – at least to the uninitiated eye. Every so often we passed a signboard explaining how archaeologists had identified this ditch as part of the Wall complex, or that that hill covered the remains of.... something.    As the day and the miles passed, the rain stopped, the clouds began to clear – and finally the sun came out – just as we reached a causeway across the fields which the signpost announced as the remains of the wall. Soon after we passed Blea Tarn (our header picture today) which was formed from the quarry which provided the stone for this section. The signboards told us the entire wall was built in around 10 years. Impressive – until we read the next paragraph which explained that the workforce was provided by slaves, and we considered the human cost of this great feat of engineering.   Tonight we are i

 So today began with a taxi ride to Bowness on Solway where the walk starts - then we had to walk the 15 miles back to Carlisle plus another mile or so back to our B&B. On the way we walked alongside the Solway Firth (having carefully checked the tide tables as the road sometimes floods). We saw some sheep who seemed convinced they were alpacas; we had a great lunch at the Greyhound pub in Burgh-by-Sands (interesting fact - this is the place where King Edward I - known as Longshanks - died) (the town not the pub). The path continued alongside the River Eden, going through an underpass (which looked more like the canals in the centre of Birmingham) to cross the Carlisle Northern By Pass. Fortunately there was a route to scramble through without getting our feet wet! And one for the railway buffs - on the way into Carlisle we passed the bridge which used to take the Waverley Line over the Eden.  Two very tired walkers this evening with icepacks on Paul's ankle and Kate's knee