Joanne's long walks: Hadrian's Wall Path Day 1: Bowness-on-Solway to Carlisle (26 km)

1150 miles to Rome - Only 84 to Wallsend!

On Saturday my Dad and I completed the Annandale Way where the Annan River flows into the sea on the Scottish side of Solway Firth. We looked across the Firth into England. On the other side, right opposite Annan, is Bowness-on-Solway, the western terminus of Hadrian's Wall - and therefore the Hadrian's Wall Path. How could I resist the temptation?

There used to be a railway bridge across the Firth. It was only 1.8 km long, and after it was closed to railway traffic in 1921, when Scotland was dry on Sundays, people used to walk across the bridge to England "for a wee dram". Unfortunately the bridge was finally demolished in 1933, and so I couldn't walk across the Firth, but had to take a bus via Carlisle.

Looking across the Solway Firth, from the English shore towards Scotland

The Hadrian's Wall Path stretches across the country coast-to-coast, from the Irish Sea to the North Sea (or vice versa), tracing the path of Hadrian's Wall as closely as possible. Remnants of the Wall itself are to be seen mainly in the middle and eastern sections of the trail, as the western end of the Wall was built out of turf rather than stone due to a lack of limestone in the area for making mortar. But some remnants of Roman occupation are visible, and blocks of the local red sandstone cut to Roman specifications and used in the defensive turrets on the towers along the wall can be found incorporated into "newer", i.e. medieval buildings.

I took a bus out to Bowness-on-Solway, a village built on the site of the Roman fort of Maia, which stood at the end of the Wall. Several walkers got off the bus here, though they appeared to be day-trippers rather than long-distance walkers. We took photographs of each other at the start of the trail. As I waited for the King's Arms to open to go in and get a trail passport on which to collect souvenir stamps along the way, a taxi pulled up and three men emerged, wearing stout boots and slinging giant backpacks onto their shoulders. They must be walking all the way! And indeed they were, but when the King's Arms turned out to have run out of trail passports, they decided to do without and went on their way, while I successfully concluded my search at the Walls' End Tea Room, in the former rectory of St. Michael's Church, where I also picked up a souvenir T-shirt.

Now I really must walk the trail, so that I can wear it!

Bowness-on-Solway

St. Michael's Church in Bowness

No need to BUY apples at this time of year!

Shoes' end in Bowness

The stamping station/viewpoint at the trail head

The trail follows the road out of Bowness, along the top of the tidal mud flats.

The first evidence of Roman occupation appears in a house in Port Carlisle with a fragment of a Roman altarpiece incorporated into the lintel over the door.

Barracks House in Glasson, just to the right of the Highland Laddie Pub, is "constructed of red standstone blocks to Roman wall specification", according to my Cicerone guidebook.

Barracks House

Drumburgh Castle, which is actually a fortified farmhouse - "burgh" (pronounced "bruff" locally) means "fortified", and can apply to anything from a house to a city - is another example of "the Wall in new form". The Wall and the fortifications along it became a handy source of ready-cut stone for the local construction industry once the Romans had gone. In the garden are two Roman altars found during excavations at Congavata, the Roman fort that once stood on the site.

Drumburgh "Castle"

The trail then crosses the Burgh Marshes alongside a minor road with more cattle than cars on it.

The Burgh Marshes

A reassuring sign

A reassuring rainbow!

St. Michael's Church in Burgh-on-Sands

St.Mary's Church, Kirkandrews

St.Mary's Church in Kirkandrews is the only church to stand precisely on the site of Hadrian's Wall. Located on a rise in the ground, it was formerly a Norman castle, and before that a turret on the Roman wall.

By this time I had been rejoined by my fellow walkers. I had overtaken them while they were lunching in the Greyhound Pub in Burgh, but, just as I was standing on the edge of a field dubiously eyeing a herd of very large cattle I had to walk right through, the three men in stout boots caught up with me and scattered the cattle, shouting and waving a stick. We walked together the rest of the way to Carlisle.

My companions of the afternoon consult a map...

... climb over a stile...

,,, and cross a bull-less field. Good thing, as two of them were wearing red jackets!

Here too I was glad I was no longer alone!
Though it turned out there was no bull in the field after all

The last part of the walk into Carlisle is along the riverside path. Once we came to the city park, my companions and I split up to reach our respective accommodations.

Visitors to Carlisle are greeted upon arrival by the delicious aroma of freshly baked Digestive Biscuits, as the city has been home to a McVities biscuit factory (originally Carr's, as in Carr's Table Water Crackers) since 1831, making it the oldest biscuit factory in the world, as well as one of the biggest.