Form 2's Hadrian's Wall Trip
Tuesday, 5 May 2026
At 8am on Tuesday 5 May, Form 2 clambered into 3 minibuses and headed off down the A1 towards Whin Sill. Two and a half hours later and despite a small detour by the Headmaster, our party of 40 were stretching our legs on the short climb from the car park up to the remains of Housesteads, Britain’s most complete Roman fort.
Well-fortified with knowledge, Form 2 wandered through the impressive ruins, soaking up the information provided and exploring Mr. Curry’s favourite feature: flushing toilets. The extraordinary ingenuity brought to bear on this forbidding landscape in 122, almost 2000 years ago, is made all the more extraordinary by the subsequent lack of progress during the centuries that followed. The inscription in the walls made by the legion raised in Belgium, the Tungrians, was a reminder of the harsh reality of life in the Roman Empire. As Mr. Curry pointed out to the eager young historians of Form 2, what must they have thought when they arrived at the start of the first winter of this particular posting...?
The work done by John Clayton in the early 19th century to preserve the wall by rebuilding it and covering the top of the stones with turf was that of a visionary at the end of seven centuries of gradual natural and man-made erosion. We walked along a stunning stretch of Clayton’s restored wall, from Housesteads to Sycamore Gap, where we had lunch and considered the folly of drunken idiots with chainsaws. For those of us that grew up with Kevin Costner’s ‘Robin Hood’ fletching his way through the mist whilst listening to Bryan Adams on repeat, this particular part of the wall holds great affection and it was quite a thing to stand and see the tragic remains of that once iconic tree.
We met a young couple, two months into walking from Land’s End to John O’Groats, and gave them a mighty cheer. They seemed pleased. Mr. Curry’s clever minibus distribution plan, which felt a bit like a giant version of following that little yellow fluffy ball as it magically moves between those three red cups, meant that we were all able to get to our next stop in double-quick time, keeping us bang on schedule, much to our organiser’s delight. Vindolanda appeared before us like a mighty leviathan from the deep.
What an incredible place this is. An active archaeological site for the past 60 years and likely to be for another 150, this Roman fort unearths its treasures on a daily basis, none more famous than Britain’s greatest treasure, the Vindolanda tablets. It is quite overwhelming to see these at first hand – written almost 2000 years ago in the reign of Emperor Trajan, they tell us something of camp life and the routine nature of the communication makes them all the more extraordinary. Here is the first recorded word in a female hand. Here are the shoes of 3 year old children, perfectly preserved in the rubbish dumps of a town that was rebuilt at least nine times. Here is history, brought to life by willing volunteers. It is unforgettable.
For Form 2, time was pressing on and fish and chips were awaiting. A short walk into Hexham took us to the beautiful Abbey and the enormous tombstone of Flavinus, a 25 year old Roman standard bearer, killed in his prime and immortalised in stone. After two hours of practice on the way south, the Heartstoppers then tested out the acoustics of Hexham Abbey with a brief rendition of ‘Going to the Chapel’ (slightly missing a trick there, in hindsight) before we were asked to leave in order for the 5pm service to start. We repaired to the park to devour an enormous pile of fish and chips.
An uneventful trip back saw us back at Belhaven after an epic 12 hours of discovery. Thank you to Mr. Curry for his organisation of this annual pilgrimage for Form 2: what a great treat it was to walk along Hadrian’s Wall with you all.
Hadrian' Wall Trip May 2026
