Crawfield's Roman Wall United Kingdom

Legendary

Constructed in AD 122, This 73 mile wall protect the Roman empire in England from attacks.

Photo by Mike Bishop

Walk west along the wall at Cawfields and it simply stops. The stone runs straight into a cliff edge and vanishes, cut clean away.

A quarry did that. Starting in 1902, a company blasted into the rock here for road-building stone and destroyed a long stretch of the wall in the process.

Quarrying finally stopped in 1952, after people campaigned to save what was left. The huge pit filled with water and is now a quiet pond with a picnic area beside it.

The wall itself is Hadrian's Wall, and construction began in AD 122. Emperor Hadrian ordered it built to mark and guard the northern edge of Roman Britain.

It stretched about 73 miles from coast to coast. Soldiers built it across some of the toughest ground in northern England.

At Cawfields, the wall runs along the top of a rocky ridge called the Whin Sill. The land drops away in steep cliffs on the north side, which made it very hard to attack.

Roman builders placed a small fort every Roman mile along the whole wall. Historians call these milecastles, and each one had gates and housed a small group of soldiers.

Milecastle 42 sits right here, and it's one of the best preserved anywhere on the wall. Its walls still stand about 1.4 meters high.

A stone slab found during a dig in the 1840s revealed who built it. The Second Legion Augusta, one of the Roman army's units stationed in Britain, did the work.

Nearby is a stretch called Thorny Doors, where the wall survives about 3 meters tall. That makes it one of the highest surviving sections along its entire length.

Climb the short steep path from the car park to reach Milecastle 42 and its wide views north. Follow the wall east along the crags for one of the most dramatic walks in England. Stay after dark if you can, since this area sits inside a Dark Sky Park with some of the clearest star views in the country.