Richard Foster

I was attracted to the Hadrian’s Wall 1900 project as I spent my childhood within spitting distance of the Wall, in a farmhouse built from Hadrian’s Wall stone, robbed to construct Lanercost Priory and in turn used to build our farm. Section 50 was west of the old family home and in fact it was new territory to me. My early research was worrying; the internet suggested there were no visible sections of the wall to explore and milecastles and Castlesteads fort was gone.

During my walks I found faint traces of the vallum ditch and a succession of farms, at regular intervals, all built from stone from the Wall. Our family home wasn’t the only one built upon archaeological vandalism! It was enjoyable to explore a place so close to my old home but full of unfamiliar features. I was drawn to the Hadrian’s Wall footpath and how features on the route; plank bridges over small streams and the worn footpath itself created an equivalent to the Wall; marking a line through the landscape.

Wall Path towards Walton depicts huge slabs of stone laid across the brow of a hill and used to keep walkers out of the surrounding marshy land. The landscape stretches eastward into the distance and includes another of those farmhouses made from Wall stone. The stabs, like full stops across the landscape, remind me of the dots on an OS map, denoting a footpath.