Hadrian's Wall: The Central Section

Chollerford ← Sewingshields Crags

Farmland and moorland track

Start beside the North Tyne at Chollerford, where Chesters — the Roman fort of Cilurnum — guarded the river crossing and preserves the best-surviving Roman bath house in Britain. Head west across pasture, climbing steadily until the ground tilts up and the first crags appear. About 3 hours.

Sewingshields Crags ← Housesteads Roman Fort

Crag-top path beside the Wall

Walk the crag edge with the whole of Northumberland opening out to the north to Housesteads, the most substantial Roman fort on the Wall, set spectacularly on the end of a mile-long crag. Its granaries, barracks and famous latrines are all still legible in the stone.

Housesteads ← Steel Rigg

Steep switchbacks between crags

The signature miles. Drop into Sycamore Gap — the glacial notch where a well-known sycamore stood for around a century until it was illegally felled in 2023 — then climb past the cliffs above Crag Lough, where the Wall needed no help from the Romans at all, to the car park at Steel Rigg. About 2 hours.

Steel Rigg ← Vindolanda

Field paths off the ridge

Drop south off the ridge to Vindolanda, an auxiliary fort that pre-dates the Wall and guarded the older Stanegate road. Waterlogged soil here preserved the Vindolanda tablets — thin wooden letters carrying the everyday handwriting of the garrison, from duty rosters to a birthday invitation. Excavation is ongoing most summers.

Vindolanda ← Cawfields

Rolling crag path

Rejoin the Wall and follow the Whin Sill — the tabular sheet of dolerite that gave the frontier its cliffs — over a run of sharp ups and downs to Cawfields, where an old quarry has bitten clean through the Roman line and left a milecastle sitting on the edge.

Cawfields ← Walltown Crags

Steep crag switchbacks

A final rollercoaster along the crag tops to Walltown, where one of the most photogenic lengths of standing Wall snakes along the ridge beside the site of Milecastle 45. Greenhead and Haltwhistle are a short way on for transport home. About 2 hours.