Day 6: Chollerford to Heddon on the Wall


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. Oswald had been brought up on Iona and subsequently sent for monks from there to help to bring the Good News of Jesus to his subjects. St Aidan responded to the call, and through him and his successors, especially Cuthbert, and later Chad and Cedd, Christianity was brought to the north of England. 

 

As the day wore on the weather began to draw in and the footpath aligned with the road mentioned above. Occasionally we would go through a stunning woodland in the autumn sunshine, but often it led into a rough, low-lying strip of land without much of a view of anything other than rather scrubby stuff and nettles. My steps counter says I’ve done 39,722 steps today, and I reckon that about 30,000 of those have been through mud!

 

By the time we stopped for lunch it was starting to rain, so we bought a cup of tea from a pub, and sat in their outside marquee for a rest (see below). The message on the heater was very tempting….

 

And so on and on and on. The road was Roman-straight so followed every up and down. Between that and the mud progress was quite slow, and we reached our booked taxi at Heddon on the Wall exactly on time at 5pm. 

A long day – over 15 miles - but getting closer and closer to the end of our journey…. 























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