Housesteads Roman Fort - Vercovicium - English Heritage Site — Attraction in Great Britain

Having not visited Housesteads since I was at school, I was keen to take my partner who loves Roman history and has moved to the north east. We recently joined the National Trust admission was included. There is a car park with ample parking and you can usually pay cash or card however today the card reader was not working. You pay on exiting and I had to go onto their website and pay £4 for a three hour park. At the main entrance there are toilets, a little cafe and picnic area. They kindly provided drinking water for dogs here.

The walk up to the site itself is very steep and is made of loose stones so be careful. It’s a 1/2 mile walk and then you pay admission at the museum and then show your ticket at the site entrance. The site itself is epic and the views are to die for. We went in July on a cloudy overcast and drizzly day which was actually perfect. There is no shelter from either hot sun or inclement weather once you’re up there. If you want photos of the ruins without people on them, try to go on a weekday out of school holidays. I managed to get some good ones when it drizzled with rain and people dispersed a bit. The ruins are brilliant to see and there are little signs at each part to describe them. Not at all impressed with the ‘art instillation’ which thankfully is only temporary and (in my humble opinion) is a blot of an otherwise beautiful landscape. I heard one super posh lady say that it was a ‘literal Instagrammable icon’. needless to say she wore dungarees, had blue hair and a rainbow badge on her fleece!!!! I 100% disagree and am pleased it’s not a permanent feature. You have this beautiful area of outstanding beauty, blemished with a scaffolding multicoloured structure slap bang in the middle of it. If you are feeling fit you can walk for 2 miles to Sycamore Gap and several people seem to be enjoying that. I will definitely return later in the year to do this.

Observations • staff super friendly and helpful. • a photocopy or a map for a small fee would be useful. • signs asking people to keep left on the walk up to the site would be handy. People walking 5 abreast which meant others having to veer into the grass and walking in sheep poop! • the postcode given on national trust website tells you you’ve gone past the entrance and to turn around - but if you keep going, you’ll get there. • dogs on leads welcome everywhere...

Loved Housteads Roman Fort. This amazingly preserved Archaeological site has a small museum and a cafe on site and a good number of interpretation/explanation panels.

As this is run by two separate entities (National Trust and English Heritage) they have a divided approach to the site. National Trust owns the Cafe, Shop & Toilets at the entrance to the site (at the bottom of the hill) and after a walk along the path (uphill) and just a short walk from the entrance to the site itself there is a small English Heritage Museum which is where you purchase your entry (unless you are a member of National Trust or English Heritage then entry is free).

The museum has a collection of great finds from the site and detailed information about the Roman history of the area. You can also buy a few things like soft drinks, ice lollies/ice creams, souvenirs and necessities for walking (I ended up purchasing a hat from here on a particularly sunny day).

Halsteads the roman ruins are a short distance from Hadrians wall and a shorter walk from the museum. The back of the ruins are attached to the wall (See the north entrance). And you even get to see how at the lowest point of the ruins they placed the toilets so all water would have drained off into there to flush out the nasties. A large part of this toilet complex still exists and is definitely worth a look!

We found that Halsteads was a great place to start a walk along a bit of Hadrians wall. We could get a bus from Haltwhistle that dropped us off at Halsteads. We walked from Halsteads to The Sill and then picked the bus back up from there to return us to Haltwhistle (we stopped at the pub Twice Brewed which is worth a stop before getting our second bus!). The path along Hadrians Wall is not an easy walk and I needed to change my path from directly next to the wall to the bottom of the hill path by the time we arrived at Sycamore Gap. So be prepared for a very undulating landscape.

Halsteads is worth a look, is a great starting point, has tasty ice creams, nice souvenirs for sale up the hill and you can get a good cup of tea at the bottom of the hill! It is easily accessed by public transport and had a decent sized car park if you need it. All in all a nice...

A return visit after a 20 year hiatus I did want to see the the dodecahedra on display just by Hexham but they wanted (English Heritage that is) over a tenner each for a visit so I decided to use my NT membership to drop in here instead (I had intended to drop a quick Sycamord Gap walk in too but it was absolutely chucking it down so we ducked out of that). The car park is pay as you leave (regardless of NT or Eng Heritage membership) and after feeling pleased I had avoided costs at Hexham then irritated I couldn't park here for free I remembered how you access the site (up a path about half a mile long from the car park or... yes... from the East or West along the wall) which means it's quite hard to stop freeloaders climbing over it without paying for some stewardship in some way. I briefly felt guilty that I'd wanted to freeload myself but then realised how much money they'd be getting from everyone by charging this way so that they can keep sites like this open for everyone. The opening scenes of Gladiator paint a picture of roman soldiers being homesick whilst fighting on the empire's furthest fronts - I always struggled as a Brit to be empathetic to the issue but my last few holidays in Italy, the last in Florence last year, have clearly changed my perspective - as I stood on the slope of Housesteads Fort with my back to the wall facing South and blinking into the wind and rain yesterday I could just about place myself in the shoes of Maximus for the first time. Maybe I'm getting old but Lord alone only knows why the Romans didn't stop at Dover if they knew the weather was like this in Britain. An amazing site but take a coat for...