A Visit to Housesteads Roman Fort

Do you know what it feels like to stand on the edge of the world? With the wind rushing through your hair in its eagerness to escape this plane, and the rain jewelling every blade of grass. There is a temperamentality to the weather here, so remote and separate to that of the south. You stand, bracing yourself against the elements and just stare. You know it’s not real, this sense of a barrier. This wall may have stood for centuries, its stone so old you daren’t touch it, yet the world continues beyond. Farmland, woodland, crumbling walls… Tales of the wild fill your mind, those thoughts of wilderness that have inspired many. What dwells beyond this barrier stretching from coast to coast? Frost giants and fallen stars, Jon Snow and Captain Shakespeare. There is a magic in the strength of this long-standing divide cutting the landscape in half. Peace and magic. Let the wind blow the memory of this place to you. Can you see it? Can you hear it?

This strange feeling of stepping over into another world, over the edge of civilisation is one that I feel every time that I reach Hadrian’s Wall… and I am not the only one! Upon visiting a few years ago, I came across a small exhibition of the Wall’s influence upon fantasy writer George R. R. Martin. When you stand there, you really can understand why such a place would have inspired the final frontier of the kingdom of Westeros. Despite the time that has passed since there were Roman soldiers guarding this place, you can still understand something of what they felt and why it was built. Even though this is no longer a barrier between the wild lands and Roman civilisation, no longer the boundary between England and Scotland so to speak, the country rolling out beyond the wall somehow feels different.

Along the length of Hadrian’s Wall are old settlements, which were guard posts once upon a time. Many of these are well known, such as Chesters and the ongoing excavations at Vindolanda. However, the one that I find the most striking is in fact Housesteads, a Roman fort upon a hill. From here you have a view of The Sill, a geological site of interest, and when you stand at the edge of the fort it drops away mercilessly into a valley creating that divide that an active imagination conjures up. Housesteads is joint owned by both The English Heritage and The National Trust, meaning that memberships with either will enable you to enjoy the site free of charge. When visiting, I recommend wrapping up warm, as somehow the temperature is always so much colder in the fort than in the valley below. Parking at the base of the hill, you can grab a snack or warm drink from the café before trudging up to the visitor’s centre. It is quite a steep walk, but not too long, so don’t let this discourage you! At the visitor’s centre you will find an exhibition that will talk you through the history of the wall and the site itself, complete with a short video that reconstructs what you can see.

From here, continue your journey up the hill and through the old gate of the fort, protected by the guard towers. Once you are in the fort, there is plenty to see. Of course, there is a need for imagination to see the site as it would have been when not a ruin. Yet, once you get your eye in, you can see all of the features common within an average Roman town, with the added extras of military buildings. What can you see? Can you find the example of hypocaust? What about the communal toilets? These are perhaps the easiest to spot and a good place to start; however, there are also small signs to explain the harder to identify walls and spaces. It is an interesting historic site to begin your exploration into the Roman forts of Britain, which could be further expanded at the larger site of Vindolanda. It has far more information and a more comprehensive museum, being far larger and owned privately by the archaeologists, but do not discount Housesteads, with its beautiful long grass and stunningly magical view. If you stand long enough you may just see the mystery of the place and view something beyond the wall… Or, a practicing plane from the local MOD base at Otterburn.

Visit Housesteads