Northumberland: Hadrian's Wall and the Castle Coast

Editor's note

Three nights on Hadrian's Wall. Walk the Hadrian's Wall Path along the crags between Steel Rigg and Housesteads, past Sycamore Gap, where the tree was felled in September 2023. Housesteads, built around AD 124, shows its latrines, granaries and hospital. Just south, the Vindolanda museum keeps the Vindolanda tablets, more than 850 ink letters on wood, and a pair of boxing gloves from around AD 120. At Chesters, thought to be the best-preserved cavalry fort on the Wall, go down to the baths by the North Tyne and look across at the Roman bridge abutments. Corbridge, the most northerly town in the Roman Empire, has granaries and a site museum.

Editor's note

One night at Kielder, in the Northumberland Dark Sky Park. Join a public stargazing night at Kielder Observatory on Black Fell, opened in 2008; October to March gives the darkest skies. By day, drive or cycle round Kielder Water, the largest man-made lake by capacity in northern Europe, and hike from Kielder Castle into the largest working forest in England. Near the castle, find Cat Cairn, James Turrell's Kielder Skyspace.

Editor's note

Two nights near Alnwick. The castle has been the Percy family home since 1309 and has stood in for Hogwarts on film. Beside it, go through the locked gates of the Poison Garden with a guide, where the plants can kill and you are told not to smell anything, then browse Barter Books in the old station. At Cragside above Rothbury, the first house in the world lit by hydroelectric power, find William Armstrong's hydraulic lift and water-powered laundry and walk the lakes and dams that drove them. At Warkworth, climb through the Percy keep above a loop of the Coquet, then walk on to the sea at Alnmouth.

Editor's note

Three nights on the coast between Bamburgh and Holy Island. Walk a mile and a half from Craster to Dunstanburgh, the largest castle in Northumberland by area and reachable only on foot, and buy kippers at Robson's smokehouse. Bamburgh Castle stands on a crag of the Whin Sill above three miles of sand, and Grace Darling is buried at St Aidan's church. From April to July, puffins, Arctic terns and guillemots nest on the Farne Islands; take a boat from Seahouses and land on Inner Farne, where St Cuthbert lived as a hermit. Check the tide tables before crossing the causeway to Lindisfarne Priory and Castle.