Wall mile 6 is not a place name but a measurement, since the Romans divided Hadrian's Wall into numbered miles counting from the east, and the sixth mile falls at Benwell, now a western suburb of Newcastle. Here, between terraces of Victorian houses, the remains of the Roman fort of Condercum once looked out over the Tyne valley, and you can still see a stretch of the Wall's foundation, the base of a turret and the remains of a small temple dedicated to a local god, Antenociticus, one of the few such temples to survive along the frontier. The fort stood on a ridge above the river, a good place to watch for trouble and a good place to be seen.
Newcastle riding is a city business. The roads around Benwell are busy, with traffic lights, buses and tight junctions, and the Roman line is mostly buried below the streets. The old Military Road, which follows the Wall westward, begins to open into a more rural route within a few miles, and in the Tyne valley the scenery becomes quite lovely, with woods, farmland and wide views. Weather can shift quickly, with wind and showers blowing in off the North Sea, so pack waterproofs even in summer.
Fuel and food are no problem. Benwell is only a few minutes from the city centre, and Blaydon-on-Tyne, with nearly fifteen thousand people, is a short ride to the west, famous for the Blaydon Races, immortalised in a Geordie song. Newcastle was founded by the Romans as Pons Aelius, the bridge of Hadrian, and it has bridged the Tyne ever since. Today seven bridges span the river within a short distance, and the iconic Tyne Bridge, opened in 1928, is the one on all the postcards.
If you have a spare hour, find the temple remains, which stand in a small enclosure beside a suburban street. They are modest, but there is something remarkable about an ancient shrine tucked between modern houses, a little island of the second century in the middle of a twenty-first century street. Then ride west, out of the city and into the Wall country.