Proper North - Hadrian’s Wall and Northumberland National Park

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We set off early on Saturday morning negotiating our hire car out of Nottingham onto the M1 motorway following the signs for “The North”. Interestingly even after a couple of hours of driving the signs that we pass in North Yorkshire tell us that “The North” is still yet further ahead. We ponder this. There mustn’t be a Yorkshireman alive who would attest to be southern, but if Yorkshire isn’t north, does that make it south? Surely not...

Anyway just past ‘Scotch Corner’ we turn off the motorway and after another half an hour or so of heading northwest we spot the signs on the side of the road letting us know that we’ve officially entered Northumberland. Cool, not far now...

Our accommodation for tonight is just a stone’s throw from Hadrian’s Wall at a place called ‘Once Brewed’. For the last 15 miles of our trip we’re presented with a couple of different routes for how we get there and our navigator, Stu, reckons the most scenic approach looks to be to go north to Hadrian’s Wall before following it west to ‘Once Brewed’.

So we make the turn we’re supposed to and we’re all looking out the window eager to be the first in the car to spot Hadrian’s wall. But there’s a problem. Every one acre sheep paddock around us is not fenced in by hardwood posts and BHP fencing wire, but by stone walls. So how do we know which wall, is the right wall?

The answer, luckily, becomes quite obvious as out our right window in the middle of a paddock we see a scattering of large stones building into a 1.5 metre wall. Ahh... that’s Hadrian’s Wall! No sheep would need a wall that thick and high to keep ‘em in!

Obviously being nearly 2000 years old it’s not continuous, but there are good lengths of it still intact and we follow it through the rolling green hills to the entrance of Housesteads ruins.

Housesteads (or Vercovicium as the Romans called it) is Britain’s best preserved Roman fort. Positioned high on a hillside with commanding views in all directions it’s in a beautiful spot. We pause for a picnic lunch, before climbing over the footprint and lower walls of the fort’s houses, walls, gates, and granary. Housesteads even has a Roman toilet block!

After completing two full loops of the ruins we decide that as the weather is so nice (i.e. not cold or raining) we should go for a bit of a stroll along the wall. So we cut through a sheep paddock then follow Hadrian’s Wall for a kilometre or so westwards as it straddles the ridge line. At the risk of sounding English we have a ball walking through the countryside and from our high points we’re rewarded with one spectacular view after another of the surrounding area.

Feeling satisfied with our wall experience we return to the car and head down the road to the Northumberland National Park visitor’s centre.  We ask for advice on what’s good to see in the park beyond the wall, and in particular - where’s a good place to see red squirrels. The super friendly lady behind the desk gives us plenty of suggestions and so armed with the tonnes of information and enthusiasm she provides us we hit the road again.

We head north over Hadrian’s wall and, after a short detour down a one lane road into possibly the north east’s most beautiful country village for some afternoon tea, we arrive at Wallington Hall (our intended squirrel spotting destination).

It’s quite busy because there’s some outdoor theatre on, but we give that a miss and pass through the manor house’s grounds following the signs to the wildlife hide. A couple of hundred metres into the forest, we reach the hide and notice a poster on the door claiming that feeding of the native red squirrels has stopped because they didn’t want to encourage the introduced grey squirrels to turn up. Not to be put off, we head inside, pull up a pew and peer out into the forest through the long thin slots.

At first there’s just a collection of small birds at the feeders, but holding to some sort of theory that it’s late in the afternoon, there’s no one else here, and generally these two factors should result in positive animal spotting so we wait on for a further 20 minutes or so.

We’re sitting quietly when in pine trees about 20 metres away when there’s a flash of red fur going up one side, then down the other, then nothing. Just as disappointment starts to build that that might be the only red squirrel we see, one pops out of the bush right in front of the hide!

He doesn’t seem too bothered by us and proceeds to munch his fill of the larger seeds that have fallen out of the bird feeders. Just as he’s looking really comfortable one of his mates turns up and after a bit of a scrap succeeds in having the remnants of the seed collection all to himself. But not for long. He too is chased off by another red squirrel and soon after he disappears into the brush we spot yet another.

Eventually the last one scampers off into the forest and we head off - chuffed in our up close encounter with four of these increasingly rare shy creatures.

Back at the ‘Once Brewed’ YHA we check in and dump our stuff before heading next door (well about 100 metres away) to the pub at ‘Twice Brewed’ for dinner. Apparently the reason for the names is that when Bonnie Prince Charley came through with his Jacobite troops the beer was so weak he made them brew it again. Hence... ‘Twice Brewed’.

Sunday started the way we had expected... raining. It stands to reason that you can’t have rolling green hills without water to keep them that way and here it was. Accordingly, our plan for the day is to do lots of driving - first heading north seeing as much of the National Park as we can before heading to the coast.

The early part of our drive through the Northumberland National Park is truly beautiful and at times we find ourselves driving along with not a building in site, just purple heather covered hills, sheep, and stone fences.

We stop off for the odd break to give the girls a rest from the incessantly windy roads, before eventually arriving into Alnwick for a late morning cup of tea accompanied by freshly baked scones.

After our break we’re on way north east out of town when we spot a great big castle! In our planning we didn’t at all even look at stopping in Alnwick - but its little wonder that this little town is so busy as Alnwick Castle is the Hogwarts castle from Harry Potter.

Unfortunately, we don’t really have time to go inside, but we stop to admire what we can of it from the outside before once again getting back on the road. Not far from Alnwick we join back onto the A1 motorway and follow it north still until we’re about 6 miles short of Berwick-upon-tweed (the most northern town in England), where we turn off towards the coast towards Holy Island.

There’s only a few hours each day when you can actually get to Holy Island. The only road to the island crosses a long causeway which becomes fully submerged at high tide. Luckily for us it’s low tide when we arrive. Before venturing across, we check the tide chart and it seems that if we’re don’t head back this way by 3:30pm, we won’t be able to get across until 10pm. Right then - we’ll be quick...

We cross the causeway, slowing down for the large puddles left on it from the retreating tide, onto Holy Island and continue along the sand flats to the village at the island’s southern end.

What we came to see is Lindisfarne castle - a great looking 16th century castle built on an outcrop of rock on the southern most point of Holy Island- but unfortunately between the driving rain and the possibility of being stuck here until 10pm we’re not too keen to get an up close look at the castle. So after a few quick photos we turn around and head back the way we came.

From Holy Island, the drive back down the A1/M1 to the Midlands takes us around five and a half hours. It’s a long way, but the weekend was tonnes of fun and we’ve now seen Hadrian’s Wall - something we’ve been keen to see since first arriving in the UK more than two years ago and as a bonus we’ve also had a chance to see one of England’s most remote corners - Northumberland National Park.

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Photos

Hadrian's Wall
Near Housesteads Fort

The North
Straight ahead...somewhere

Nice day for a walk
Sheep paddock near Hadrian's Wall

Red Squirrel
About to make a speech