Hadrian's Wall Walking Tour: Carrawburgh to Housesteads

Hadrian's Wall is one of the ancient world's most ambitious construction projects, an 80-mile stone curtain built to mark the northern edge of the Roman Empire. On this walking tour, you'll follow a six-mile section of the Wall through the Northumbrian landscape, from a buried Roman fort to one of the Wall's best-preserved garrison strongholds. You'll also hear how soldiers, native Britons, medieval bandits, and Victorian antiquarians each left their mark on this extraordinary monument.

The tour starts at Carrawburgh, site of the Roman fort Brocolitia, where a thousand auxiliary soldiers once kept watch over both conquered and unconquered territory. From there, you'll visit a remarkably preserved underground temple to the Persian god Mithras, whose secretive initiation rites made it one of the Roman military's most exclusive brotherhoods. You'll also pass the site of Coventina's Well, a sacred spring where over 13,000 coins were thrown as offerings – and where deliberate flooding by the last priests helped preserve the ruins for archaeologists centuries later.

As the route climbs onto the volcanic sill that gives this landscape its dramatic ridgeline, the Wall's foundations emerge from the earth, and you'll begin to see milecastles, turrets, and defensive ditches in their proper relationship to one another. Along the way, you'll hear W.H. Auden's poem about a homesick Roman soldier, and encounter three separate King Arthur legends tied to specific spots on the route. The tour ends at Housesteads, the Roman fort of Vercovicium, perched on a high escarpment with sweeping views north into what was once enemy territory.

On this 180-minute tour, you'll have a chance to:

• Explore the Temple of Mithras at Brocolitia, one of the best-preserved examples on the Wall
• Hear how the Vallum – a massive southern ditch – regulated the military zone along the Wall's entire length
• Walk through Milecastle 35, built without a northern gate because the ravine made one pointless
• Learn how the Busy Gap served as a lawless crossing for bandits raiding between England and Scotland
• Discover Bronze Age earthworks predating the Romans at King's Wicket
• See how Victorian landowner John Clayton saved the Wall from total destruction by buying up the land

This is a walk through one of Britain's great landscapes, with two thousand years of history underfoot at every step.