Walking Hadrian’s Wall - Roman civilisation at the edge of an Empire

The coach leaves Newcastle Central Station at 2.15pm (or from the hotel, Matfen Hall, at 1.30pm) and takes you straight out to Housesteads. With standing remains of up to 10 feet, this is the best preserved of the Wall’s forts and evocatively reveals the usual panoply of perimeter walls and gateways, headquarters building, commander’s palatial residence, granaries, hospital, latrines. Remote and rugged, there are superb views.

A thrilling but challenging walk (2.6 miles, c. 3 hours). Terrain is perhaps the most consistently rugged and undulating, sometimes quite steeply. It follows long, well-preserved stretches of the Wall through moorland above the cliffs of the Whinsill Crag, the Wall’s highest point. Corbridge began as a fort in the chain built in c. ad 85 but left to the south by Hadrian’s Wall it became a large civilian town.

Another challenging walk that, for much of the route, rides the crest of the faultline of dolerite crags, dipping and climbing (3.2 miles, c. 3 hours). There are some steep ascents and descents on rocky terrain. The rewards include excellently preserved milecastles, staggering views: moorland, lakes, conifer forests to the north, richly variegated greens, plentiful livestock, distant vistas to the south. Chesters is the most salubrious of the forts, with a lavish bath house, built for 500 Asturian cavalrymen, in an enchanting river valley setting.

The fort and town of Vindolanda is the site of ongoing excavations. These are revealing everyday artefacts including, famously, the ‘postcard’ writing tablets which uniquely document details of everyday life. Drive to a couple of archaeological remains, the Mithraic temple at Brocolitia and the bridge abutments across the river from Chesters.

An easy walk through low-lying and pretty farmland with streams and wild flowers (2 miles, c. 2 hours). Included is the only mile with both milecastles and turrets visible, and good lengths of Wall.

The final walk is graded moderate and is spectacularly varied, from rocky hilltops to lowland pasture (c. 3 miles, c. 2½ hours). Drive to Carlisle to see the Wall collections in the Tullie House Museum, and continue to the evocative estuarial landscape of the Solway Firth. The Wall ended at the remote village of Bowness-on-Solway.

At South Shields, Arbeia is a fine reconstruction of a fort gateway, as well as reconstructions of a soldier’s barrack block and an opulent house belonging to the Commanding Officer. At aptly named Wallsend, and now engulfed in the Tyneside conurbation, Segedunum was the most easterly of the forts, the layout clearly seen from a viewing platform. The coach takes you to Newcastle railway station by 2.00pm before continuing to Matfen Hall.