Northumberland has been a border territory for almost 2,000 years. The Romans occupied Britain from the middle of the 1st century to the beginning of the 5th century and for much of this time Northumberland was the very edge of their mighty empire.

It was in 122 AD that the Emperor Hadrian ordered the building of a wall across the country from the Tyne to the Solway to separate the land of the Britons from the land of the Picts. Now officially recognised as a World Heritage Site, the remains of the central section of the Wall still snake their way across the whinstone cliff on which it was built. There are also many forts, museums, temples and other remains, the most important of which are described below.

A curiosity about the Wall is that it is often used as an alternative term for the Scottish border - "The other side of Hadrian's Wall" being used (especially by people from the south of England) to mean Scotland. In fact, 90% of the English county of Northumberland is north of the Wall and at no point in its entire length does the Wall separate the two countries. The tribe of people known as "Scots" did not come to Britain (from Ireland) until hundreds of years after the Romans had left the country. In Roman times, the area now called Scotland was populated by "Picts".

Hadrian's Wall When it was built in stone, the Wall was some 73 miles long and 5 metres high. It was one of the Roman Empire's greatest feats of engineering. Today, the best remaining sections of the Wall in Northumberland are only 1 metre high but they are still very impressive.