B 6318
Recycling gone wrong
The Jacobite rebellion of 1745 threw northern England into turmoil. Scottish forces, under the leadership of Charles ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’ Stuart, had captured Carlisle in November of that year. Moving troops across the country was difficult as roads were poor, but this affected British forces as much as it did the Jacobites. It took General Wade, leader of the Hanoverian army, almost a week to move his men from Newcastle to Carlisle. What was needed was a new road to link the two towns. In 1751, with the rebellion quashed, work began on what quickly came to be known as Wade’s Road (a name now rarely used, though the B 6318 is still known as the Military Road).
Building a road requires a lot of stone, and the builders of Wade’s Road had an ample supply. Unfortunately for future archaeologists this just happened to be Hadrian’s Wall, which the road largely ran parallel to. It’s thought that most of the damage done to the wall was due to the building of the road, with the road built over demolished stretches of the wall in places, and the stone used for hardcore. The best preserved sections of the wall are in areas where the road is relatively distant.
The B 6318 is the modern version of Wade’s Road. It’s a quieter road than it once was thanks to the A 69 a few miles south. Now it’s the route taken by visitors to sites along Hadrian’s Wall, or who aren’t in a particular hurry. At just over 61 miles in length, the B6318 has the distinction of being the longest B-road in Britain, running across three counties and over the border into Scotland. (There seems to be something magical about the numbers 6, 3, 1 and 8, as the B 6138 in Yorkshire is thought to be the road with the longest continuous gradient in England.) Coincidentally or not, the road becomes more unruly once it leaves the shadow of Hadrian’s Wall, meandering northwards to Langholm, its terminus point.
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Address Heddon-on-the-Wall, Northumberland to Langholm, Dumfries and Galloway | Getting there The Hadrian’s Wall stretch of the B 6318 is served by the AD122 bus service in the summer months. | Tip The Three Tuns pub in Heddon-on-the-Wall is a friendly and atmospheric country pub that serves drinks and hearty traditional pub food (1 Military Road, Heddon-on-the-Wall, NE15 0BQ, +44 (0)1661 852172).
Barcombe Hill
The hill of secrets
Barcombe Hill isn’t one of the highest hills in Hadrian’s Wall Country, nor one of the steepest. It does have a good number of things going for it, however. From the summit is a unique panoramic view of Vindolanda, which is arguably the best place to see the layout of the fort and its surrounding countryside (see ch. 104). On its northern flank is the outline of an Iron Age settlement, with the remains of a Roman signal station overlaid on one corner.
There is also a Roman quarry face on the north-west side of the hill, identified by the inscription XIII and a crude carving of a phal lus (see ch. 72). In 1837 a Roman hoard was found by men rework ing the quarry.The silver and gold coins were found in a bronze arm purse, which can now be seen in the Clayton Museum (see ch. 30). The coins, all dating prior to A.D. 120, helped to determine when Hadrian’s Wall was built. Until then, the wall was thought to have been built on the orders of Emperor Severus, long after Hadrian’s rule (see ch. 45).
However, the most mysterious object on Barcombe Hill is the Long Stone.There are no markings on the tall, thin pillar, which was broken and repaired at some point in its history.The top is unworked and rough and so it looks as though the Long Stone may once have been taller still. Could it have been a cross? That’s one possibility as there is evidence that the base dates from the eighth century. Another theory is that it may have been erected in the 19th century as a memorial to miners who died at Chainley Burn Colliery near Bardon Mill. The only problem with that idea is that there is no record of a disaster at the colliery to warrant a monument. Or could it have been erected to mark the passing of a local quarryman? There really is no consensus on what the Long Stone represents, which, in a time when information is so readily available at the press of a key, is oddly refreshing.
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Address Thorngrafton Common, Northumberland, NE47 7JN | Getting there Limited free parking at Crindledykes Limekiln and then a 20-minute walk following a footpath over rough ground | Tip The remains of Iron Age settlements are relatively common on Northumberland’s uplands. One of the most spectacular is the hillfort on Brough Law, reached after a steep but invigorating walk (Bulby’s Wood Car Park, near Ingram, NE66 4LT).
Cawfields Quarry
Reclaimed
As the name suggests, Cawfields Quarry was once an industrial quarry site.The product was the dolerite of the Great Whin Sill formation that outcrops in Northumberland and County Durham (see ch. 106). Historical photographs of the quarry show a scene unrecognisable today.The site was a maze of brick and timber huts, linked by overhead conveyor belts carrying freshly quarried rock to crushing machinery. In 1905, a narrow gauge railway was built to transport the rock to Haltwhistle. From there it could be sent onward by goods train on the Newcastle and Carlisle railway line.
The quarry closed in 1952 with the site eventually given into the care of the Northumberland National Park. It’s now a place for picnics or as a base from which to explore nearby sites, such as Cawfields (see ch. 22), the curiously named Thorny Doors (see ch. 97), and Aesica Roman Fort (see ch. 1).
The most striking feature of Cawfields Quarry is the large pond overlooked by a triangular crag, both of which are leftovers from the quarry. The pond is deep enough that local diving groups use it to practise in. Objects found at the bottom include the remains of an old van and – ironically – a road sign warning of flooding. A particularly masochistic event is the Ice Breaker Challenge, usually held in January when the pond can freeze over for weeks at a time. Making a more permanent home in the pond are stickleback and perch. In the spring, frogs come to mate here, leaving great blobs of frogspawn drifting in the shallows. Come summer and the pond is thickly surrounded by native flowering plants, such as rosebay willowherb, meadowsweet and heather. Ducks are a regular visitor, and at dusk it’s not uncommon to see owls silently hunting for rodents in the surrounding moorland. So natural does Cawfields Quarry now look that it’s hard to believe it was once a scar on the landscape, which is a wonderfully comforting thought.
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Address Cawfields, Haltwhistle, Northumberland, NE49 9PJ | Getting there Cawfields Quarry is on the route of the Hadrian’s Wall Path; bus AD 122 in the summer months to the Milecastle Inn and then a 13-minute walk; paid parking at Cawfields Quarry | Tip Washington ‘F’ Pit was a coal mine first sunk in the 18th century and is know a fascinating museum (Albany Way, Washington, Sunderland, NE37 1BJ, +44 (0)191 5612323).
The Centre of Britain
All roads lead to Haltwhistle
Being able to make a unique geographical claim can do wonders for the fortunes of a town or village. Buxton proudly styles itself as the highest market town in England, whereas Coton in the Elms is the village furthest from the sea in Britain. Haltwhistle, in Northumberland’s Hadrian’s Wall Country, is at the geographical centre of Britain. This claim is made on signs directing you into the town, and is celebrated by a Centre of Britain marker in Market Square. There’s even a Centre of Britain Hotel on Main Street, which, as names go, is hard to beat.
Only… Is Haltwhistle truly the centre of Britain? It really depends on how you calculate these things. Haltwhistle is exactly halfway between Portland in Dorset and North Orkney, which, at a distance of 580 miles is the longest line of longitude through Britain. Not only that, the centre of the four countries in the United Kingdom – Meriden in England, the Forest of Atholl in Scotland, Carno in Wales, and Pomeroy in Northern Ireland – are all pleasingly equidistant from Haltwhistle.
However – and this is where it gets controversial – the Ordnance Survey has calculated the true centre of Britain to be Whitendale Hanging Stones in Lancashire. They came to this conclusion using the gravitational method.This imagines all 401 islands that make up Great Britain propped up on the head of a pin. The point at which everything neatly balances is Britain’s centre of gravity, which just so happens to be under Whitendale Hanging Stones.
Does this really matter? Haltwhistle has certainly benefitted from its claim to be the Centre of Britain. Visitor numbers have increased since the claim was first made in the 1990s, so in that sense it does. Besides, Haltwhistle is just a mile or so from Hadrian’s Wall, which was once at the very edge of the Roman Empire. Moving the town from the periphery to the centre seems only fair.
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Address Market Square, Haltwhistle, Northumberland, NE49 0BQ | Getting there Bus 185 Tynedale Links, 681 Tynedale Links, 685, X 122 or AD 122 (in the summer months) to Market Place; free parking at Fair Hill and Lanty’s Lonnen | Tip The Brew Bar is a quirky café bar serving hot drinks, food and cake, as well as gin and tonics, wine and a wide range of cocktails (Market Square, Haltwhistle, Northumberland, NE49 0BL, +44 (0)1434 321370).