Winshields, Hadrian's Wall
345 metres up on Winshields Crags, Hadrian's Wall reaches the highest ground on its whole route
Open accessfree to visit at any reasonable time
Substantial ruinsruined, but plenty survives above ground
Hadrian’s Wall rises to its highest point on Winshields Crags, 345 metres above sea level and roughly halfway along the Wall’s length. The Wall climbs to the summit from the east at Peel Gap, and two short stretches here have been rebuilt and conserved, one just below the top and a longer one on the western descent towards Caw Gap. Two milecastles, the Wall’s mile-spaced gateway forts, and three turrets, its smaller lookout posts, once stood along this stretch, though only the milecastle sites survive today as grassy banks, with no masonry from any of them left above ground.
Because the ground falls away so steeply to the north here, the Romans skipped the deep ditch that runs along lower stretches of the Wall elsewhere; near Peel Gap, where the land is flatter, a ditch does survive there, reaching as much as 2.7 metres in depth in places.
Winshields is free to visit and can only be reached on foot, along an exposed stretch of the Hadrian’s Wall Path that gets muddy in wet weather. It’s about 1.75 miles to Cawfields Roman Wall to the west, with The Sill and the Twice Brewed Inn a short walk east near Once Brewed.
