Hiking Hadrian's Wall - Your Path To Adventure

The wall was constructed by the engineering corpse of the Roman Army during the reign of Hadrian (or at least started during his reign) the production of the wall began around 120AD although the precise reason for the building of the wall has never been fully understood by historians. The official reasoning of keeping the rebellious forces of Northern Britannia out of Roman territory is a tad confusing. While these "northern barbarians" did put up quite a fight, conquering it wouldn't have been a huge feat for even relatively small Roman armies garrisoned in Britain at the time, and much of the area walled off would have been tough for the rebels to cross even without the wall.

In all likely-hood the wall was more of a make-work project designed to employ the British-Romans and keep the military busy. The Wall was built to hold some 9,000 Roman troops and attracted, as the movement of troops often do, a whole host of others to set up camps and towns all along the wall.

Here are some books about the wall, many of which are recommended by Natural England, the agency responsible for maintaining the trail.