The country around Haltwhistle is where Hadrian's Wall is at its most dramatic. The Romans built it along the Whin Sill, a ridge of hard volcanic rock that rises in a long wall of crags above the farmland, and the ruins of milecastles, turrets and forts run along the top, making a line that climbs and dips like a stitched seam. Haltwhistle claims to be the centre of Britain, which no one can prove, and the town has a quiet, grey-stone high street. A Roman temporary camp, like the one at Chesters Pike, was a marching camp, where an army dug a ditch and raised a bank around a night's lodging, and left almost nothing behind. Often the only trace is a faint rectangle in the grass.
The Military Road, the B6318, runs along the line of the Wall and gives the area its best ride. It was built after the Jacobite rising of 1745, on the advice of General Wade, who wanted a way to move troops across England, and the builders took stone from the Wall for the road base, so the road still follows the line of the old frontier. It dips and rises like a roller coaster, with long straights, crests that hide the road, and views over the moors to the north. Wind, sheep and the occasional tractor are the main hazards, and the road is very exposed in winter.
On the way you pass Cawfields Quarry, where a lake sits below the crag with a milecastle on the edge, and Walltown Crags, a high point with a spectacular view. Housesteads Fort and Vindolanda lie a little to the east, and the latter has produced hundreds of wooden writing tablets with letters from Roman soldiers, including a birthday party invitation and a request for socks. They are among the most human objects from the Roman world.
Haltwhistle has some four thousand people, with fuel and a couple of cafes, and Hexham is the nearest big town. Take a waterproof and a warm layer, since weather changes quickly on the ridge. In clear weather the long light in the evening makes the crags glow, and it is the best time to be there.