A short, thinner stretch of Wall near Chesters that only survives because a passing walker talked a farm labourer out of dismantling it
Open accessfree to visit at any reasonable time
Substantial ruinsruined, but plenty survives above ground
In 1801, at 78, William Hutton of Birmingham set out to walk the whole length of Hadrian’s Wall and back home again, a round trip of 600 miles on foot. At Planetrees he came across a workman pulling apart a stretch of the ancient stonework so that the landowner, a farmer named Henry Tulip, could put the stones to use in new farm buildings. Hutton complained, and the 35 metres of Wall that survive here today probably owe their existence to that one encounter.
The stretch is worth a look for what it shows about how the Wall was built, not for its height. A join partway along marks where the original ten-Roman-foot width narrows to under two metres, sitting on foundations that had already been laid for the wider design before the Romans changed their minds partway through construction. The Wall gained formal protection in 1945, with consolidation work following a few years afterward. It’s a short, flat walk from Brunton Turret along the Hadrian’s Wall Path, with the river crossing at Chesters Roman Bridge Abutment a little further on.
