Suggested Walk: Housesteads to Steel Rigg Circuit

A great full day hike taking in THE classic Wall fort, dramatic cliffs and lakes, long stretches of Wall, and a return via "Barbaricum"

This hike starts and ends at the Housesteads parking lot, covers about 9.5 miles, and will take most of the day (maybe 5-7 hours, depending on how fast you like to walk and how long you want me to talk). If that sounds a bit daunting we can do a shorter circuit too, and there's always the option to retreat to the pub at Twice Brewed.

We will start our walk with a tour of the picturesque and windswept Housesteads Roman Fort. Housesteads is rightly famous not only for its beautiful location but also its extensive excavation and well preserved ruins. No visit is complete without a visit to the Roman communal latrine, the "murder house", and the commander's private bath. We will also see how things were looking distinctly "un-Roman" by the end. From there we get to walking.

The hike east of Housesteads is fantastic, and is also the only place where you're allowed to walk on Wall itself. We will visit Milecastle 37 and it's "gate to nowhere", the almost vanished ruins of a Romano-British settlement at Milking Gap, the well preserved Milecastle 39 (Castle Nick), the famous Sycamore Gap (instant instagram opportunities), and my favorite, Peel Gap Tower, the tower that shouldn't exist.

After the exhilarating descent to Pele Gap, we turn at Steel Rigg parking lot for a return trip though the wild and barbarous lands north of the Wall. In inclement weather, you really feel like you've gone beyond the ends of the Earth. Of course, that wasn't really true even in Roman times, as we'll discuss while we're walking. From here we see what few Wall walkers do, the outsiders' view of Hadrian's Wall and a chance to see the imposing cliffs of the Whin Sill from below. Our route loops us back to Housesteads past the Knag Burn gate where Hadrian's grand plan had to bow to geography and functionality, and a final sight of the fort on its hill. Phew, what an adventure!