We started off early today, with the plan to head almost into Scotland (but not quite) to see Hadrian's Wall (more on this later).
Our first stop of the day was Appleby-in-Westmorland. We basically stopped to explore this little market town because it had a cute name, which probably happens a lot in the UK as there are a lot of cute names. I didn't take nearly as many photos of this little village as I wanted to, mainly because there were so many white vans parked in front of pretty buildings while we were there!
From there, we drove up through the North Pennines towards Hadrian's Wall. I fell in love with the North Pennine National Park while we were driving through it - it reminded me of Dartmoor only bleaker. There were not many houses around and it was cold, with snow measures placed by the sides of the road. It was gorgeous in its wildness though.
We popped out of the Pennines at the top and followed signs to Housesteads.
This is the remains of a Roman fort, built in 124AD, that sits on a very windy hillside in the north of England. It was freezing while we were there, and I had my Buff pulled over my head like a balaclava to keep the wind out. Brr.
The Housesteads Fort was built on part of the Roman wall as just one of a series of fortifications along the wall, which used to stretch from the Tyne at the North Sea to the Solway Firth on the Irish Sea, so right across the top end of England. These days, only 117.5km of this wall remains, but it's still a very impressive sight. You can also see why they built it where they did too, as it's built on a bluff so there was already a natural wall in place. However, despite a lot of people thinking that the wall was built between England and Scotland, it was not. It's built entirely in England. It does get close to Scotland, coming within 1km of the border at one point, but is also over 100km away from the border at another. The whole thing was, however, quite fascinating. Oh and if you're wondering if it was built to keep the Scottish out, it was. Turns out that the Romans had conquered England and Wales but Scotland had put up a bigger fight. Also, Scotland being Scotland was probably harder to conquer simply because of the ruggedness of its land. So they built the wall instead as the most northern defense of the Roman land.
It had already been a long day driving and we hadn't had any lunch, so stopped at the nearest pub once we got back on the road for a feed before driving back down to Motherby. We'd visited some lovely, albeit cold and windy, places today!