Book Chollerford attraction tickets

Chollerford sits quietly in the North Tyne valley in Northumberland, a small settlement whose significance far outweighs its size. The River North Tyne runs through here with a steady, unhurried pace, and the surrounding landscape of open moorland and farmland carries the particular quality of northern England at its most unadorned. What draws visitors to this corner of the country is not the village itself but what lies just beyond it: one of the best-preserved sections of Hadrian's Wall, the Roman frontier built on the orders of Emperor Hadrian from around AD 122 to mark the northernmost limit of the Roman Empire.

Chesters Roman Fort, known in antiquity as Cilurnum, stands on the western bank of the North Tyne and represents a remarkable survival. It was a cavalry fort, garrisoned at various points by units from across the Roman world, and the remains visible today include barrack blocks, the commanding officer's house, and, most strikingly, the bathhouse by the river's edge. Roman bathhouses of this completeness are rare anywhere in Britain, and the walls here still stand to considerable height, giving a genuine sense of the scale and ambition of Roman military infrastructure. The site also holds the Clayton Museum, assembled by John Clayton in the nineteenth century when he systematically purchased land along the Wall to protect it from quarrying. His collection of altars, sculptures, and inscriptions remains one of the more important assemblies of Roman stonework in the north.