Just a short post today, as I’ll be driving back from Northumberland today as it’s the end of my holiday.  It’s been a fantastic trip, staying in my old cottage, surrounded by history and the beautiful countryside of the area.  I even made it back to Hadrian’s Wall on Friday, after my first trip needed to be aborted due a heavy downpour of rain.  This time the weather was much kinder I had a fantastic walk between Steel Rigg and Housesteads.

This section of the Wall shows the remains of a few of the mile-castles that were evenly spaced along the Wall, and each housed around thirty men.  I know it doesn’t appear that that much is left of the mile-castle in the picture, but when the Wall was in active use it would have stood at fifteen feet high, with battlements and a walkway all along the Wall, with three turrets or watchtowers interspersed between each mile-castle.  As you can see from the rocky and craggy countryside, that was no small building achievement along the cliffs and escarpments of the region.

The walk ends with the fort Housesteads, which was one of the major encampments along the escarpment.  This would have been the headquarters of one of the main military presences along the Wall and housed up to eight-hundred men and was surrounded by a civilian settlement – sorry, I forgot to take a picture of the fort (opps!).

Once I am back in London I will be turning my mind to promoting my novel, so I will thinking up a few give-aways or other ways to get the word out regarding my book.  If you have any good ideas in this regard, be sure to let me know!