Saturday, 29 August
Got up, had a nice shower and a good Northumberland breakfast. Drove north to Hadrian's Wall, and then in parallel to the West, stopping wherever we saw an extant section of wall that interested us (most of it is gone or not visible).
Gave Chester's Fort a miss, stopping instead at the Temple of Mithras, which was exquisite. It had been partially flooded by recent rains, and looked beautifully haunted with the mosaic floor and piles underwater, surrounded by silence and cows. Next step, Housestead's Fort, where we joined the National Trust. The remains are far up a hill, so it entailed a big walk straight up the side. Very interesting, lots of well-preserved foundations over a large site, with superb views down at the uppity northern barbarians (the Scots, that is). Best of all was the near-perfect latrine!
Made a quick stop to look at Steel Ring hilltop, then pulled out the stops to explore Walltown, a long section of standing wall snaking up and down a steep hill range, ending in a quarry. Supremely beautiful! Now very tired and hungry, we drove through Haltwhistle (it considers itself the centre of Britain, but its an eyesore) on the way to Lanercost Priory. We ate lunch in a little cafe, both having salads as a change from the heavy northern pub grub. The Priory had very interesting ruins, not at the scale of some of the others we've seen, but with some nice carvings and interesting features (including a boardgame incised in a window ledge, and a mason marking up his day's tally on the wall).
We were press-ganged into joining English Heritage, I bought some fudge, and we saw the Pre-Raphaelite stained glass windows in the chapel (by William Morris). Popped into Carlisle for groceries, then wound our way down through Cumbria to our cottage by Coniston.
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