Hadrian's Wall Path - Day 3, part 2

From Housesteads the Wall climbs and dips along the ridges towards the west: over Cuddy’s Crags, Hotbank Crags, Highshield Crags and Steel Rigg. I’ve walked this section on a bright, windy day, when the moors feel vast and open, and broken cloud-shadows glide swiftly over the folds of the land.

From an earlier trip, when the weather was less shitty

Today, though, cloud was everywhere, and everywhere was damp. Not that it mattered, with so much of interest to see. At milecastle 37 you find the arch of the northern gate with its springs still in place, as well preserved as any on the Wall.



A little farther the path takes a sudden dip into Sycamore Gap, where you see what is now popularly known as the Robin Hood Tree. This spot, as Hollywood has taught us, was once part of Nottinghamshire.


Scramble up the path on the other side of the gap, and there is a fine view of milecastle 39, whose north gate leads directly to a sheer drop from the crag. This makes the gate useless from a practical point of view, but it does demonstrate the strict by-the-book mindset of the Roman engineers, who insisted on placing their milecastles at precisely regular distances. There’s an even better example of this peculiar sort of military madness farther west.


And coming to Steel Rigg, here is a fine view of one of the turrets originally built between the milecastles. The turrets were systematically demolished by the Romans later in the second century, presumably because they were no longer considered necessary for the functioning of the Wall.


I left the path at Steel Rigg and finished my third day at Once Brewed youth hostel. I wanted to stay here mainly for nostalgic reasons, as I stayed here with Dunk thirteen years ago (almost to the day) during our Land’s End to John O’Groat’s bike ride.


I arrived two hours before the hostel opened, so I sat and drank more tea and hot chocolate in the neighbouring visitor centre. In my bunk room were two oldish men, also long-distance walkers. One of them was doing the Pennine Way, but had just decided to quit after two weeks of continual rain. Unluckily for him, the weather decided to improve the next day...