Hadrian's Wall - Day 8 - The Wall begins to vanish

Two things were noticeable today. One was that the wall, forts, milecastles and turrets had become largely hypothetical. 

Grassy humps and bumps did no more than allude to the presence of the Wall, even while our OS map pinpointed the location of a once mighty fortress. The fortifications, built of squared stone blocks had provided a convenient quarry for local houses, churches and farm walls.

That stretches remain at all is to the credit of certain antiquarians and enlightened landowners who stopped its depletion. However, even the bits that remain are a mere stump of a wall which once, including its parapet, stood 6 metres tall.

The other thing that happened to today was that we discovered how much better we had got at walking, even though it was barely a week since we began. We had nine or ten miles to walk, since we were stopping at Wylam to see Nigel's mother. We told her to expect us mid afternoon. 

In fact, even having toured an Anglo Saxon church and searched for a coffee shop at Heddon, and then having accidentally taken a long way round to Wylam, we were still there by 12.30.

Which was a good thing, as Gill was keen for an outing, and Nigel drove us over to Blanchland for a cup of tea.