HWP Day 2: Newcastle to Heddon-on-Wall / Wylam

The lack of wall on today’s stretch is replaced by a journey through time. The Romans started building the wall in 122 and they left Britannia in about 410 when Barbarians were attacking Rome. The church in Heddon dates from 650. Newcastle castle goes back to 1080. The friars at last night’s restaurant established their friary in 1239, lasting three centuries before Henry VIII kicked them out in 1539. We passed through Newburn, where there used to be a ford across the River Tyne and is the site of a battle between the English and the Scots in 1640. We also passed by the site of the former Tyneside Ironworks which opened in 1797 and led to a thriving shipbuilding industry. Our trail went next to the house where George Stephenson, the father of railways, was born in 1781. We passed the former site of one shipyard at Elswick, which built the entire Japanese Navy between 1895 and 1905 for the Russo-Japanese war. One memorial commemorated 38 men and boys who died in a coal mining disaster in 1925 in Scotswood while another remembered the lives lost in the two world wars.

As we started out this morning on a very English drizzly morning, I wondered what it would have been like during Roman times. However, I realized how different the place was at all of the times mentioned above. Much of today’s walk is along a very well built quay along the side of the river, which seems so out of place as there is no sign of boats to tie up, especially at low tide. The businesses and houses that are just set back from the river’s foreshore have replaced the thriving shipyards, ironworks, and collieries that made this England’s industrial workhorse in the 1900’s. As yesterday, there is a sense of renewal and redefinition. The weather is likely similar!

Today’s walk is described in some guidebooks as the “slog” to get out of Newcastle. In leaving our hotel, we started the day in the hustle of morning commuters and kids going to school, but were soon by ourselves when we rejoined the HWP on the Tyne’s northern bank. A bike whizzed past every now and then, but even with that solitude, it felt urban. We counted 13 west-to-east HWP trekkers who were about to finish at Wallsend.

After about 8 miles, which is about 15 miles of HWP from Wallsend, we finally started walking on a dirt path and our joints were happy. The path was narrow at times as it hugged the river’s banks and the long grass and trees made us wet, but we were happy to be hiking in the country again. We celebrated our first kissing gate, and the sign that announced that we were on Hadrian’s Wall Path, rather than Hadrian’s Way. The path was called the Way through Newcastle as the path shared the route with the bike trail.

The river changed with the trail, and the curlews looking for a meal in the mudflats evolved to a flock of seagulls hanging out on a rocky island. While the couple of rats that we saw hinted at the industrial past of the area, we enjoyed some slugs and snails that thrived in the rain.

After about 8 miles of following the river, the HWP headed inland and up the hill. The little town of Heddon at the top of the hill is easy to spot, and one immediately sees the strategic reason for building the wall on the top of such a hill. And that is where we found a sizable chunk of wall. The street names hinted we were close to the wall, such as Centurion Way, Trajan Walk, Mithras Gardens, and Remus Avenue.

A chocolate bar from the Shell station beckoned us, and after its sustenance, then we headed back down the hill to our B&B in Wylam. We had hit the 11 mile mark for the day when we reached Heddon and the legs felt it, but it was 3 more miles to the B&B. The way down got more interesting as our path skirted a well manicured Lee Westwood golf course. We needed to watch out as some of the tee shots were a bit wild and threatened walkers on the public footpath, but I am sure the weather could be blamed. We arrived in Wylam about an hour before we could check in and were happy to find a tea shop close by for some Earl Grey, a caramel shortbread, and a warm place out of the rain.

We are staying at the Wormald B&B, which was built by a local colliery manager in 1888. It had a butcher shop until 1990 and had its own small slaughterhouse. While maintaining the external facade, the renovators have done very well to squeeze an en suite bathroom into the guest rooms.

With a full belly after a 14 mile day with over 35,000 steps, I expect we will sleep well, which we need as tomorrow is even longer.

This blog post is linked to from my Hadrian’s Wall Path page.

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