2025 was the first year in a long time that we didn’t manage to squeeze in a trip to Northumberland. It’s one of our favourite places: super dog friendly, endless beautiful walking and plenty of lovely cosy pubs and cafes. We were already starting to plan for a return when Battlesteads Hotel reached out and asked if we’d like to stay for a few days in one of their luxury lodges: located in the heart of Northumberland national park, the hotel is perfectly located for walks along Hadrian’s Wall and in Kielder Forest.
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Chesters Roman Fort
With Northumberland being an easy drive up from North Yorkshire, we had a steady journey up on the Friday afternoon after work. Traffic was great and so we arrived with time for a quick stop at Chesters Roman Fort before checking in – one of my favourite English Heritage sites. This was our second visit but I think with places like this you can always find something you missed before: Sam was determined to find the lucky phallus carving that he’d seen on a TV show about Hadrian’s Wall which he’d missed on our previous visit. If anyone else wants to find it, it’s in the museum…
Arriving about 40 minutes before closing, we didn’t have time for more than a quick whiz around, but it’s a pleasant site and being the end of the day we practically had it to ourselves. Chesters is best known for its extraordinarily well preserved bath house, which sits on the banks of the river just outside the main fort. Reading the information sign, I was extremely taken with the photo of a mosaic from an Algerian bathhouse, depicting two pairs of flip flops and the phrase ‘BENE LAVA’ – ‘wash well’. Having seen almost the exact same design in Next while shopping for a new bath mat a few weeks ago, I found this hilarious. I guess the Romans really weren’t that different to us.
Battlesteads
From Chesters, it was less than a 10 minute drive to Battlesteads. Located in the pretty village of Wark, the hotel was easy to find and we arrived to a warm welcome – for both us and the dogs. We were staying in one of their luxury lodges, which are super spacious and situated outside of the main hotel – perfect if you have a nosey dog who likes to bark at passersby like we do! The dogs were even treated to their own doggy welcome hampers, complete with treats, a chew and poo bags, as well as more practical touches like a muddy paws wash station and towels for dogs as well as people. And it’s not just dogs who are welcome at Battlesteads – cats are, too.
After unpacking our bags, we strolled across to the main hotel for dinner: the fantastic 8 course tasting menu. Dogs are welcome to dine with you, but with Coal being reactive we opted to leave them snoozing in our room – with no walkways outside the door, we thought they’d be no bother, and it’s less stressful for everyone involved if Coal isn’t having a meltdown over a dog at the next table. Being able to leave the dogs in the lodge meant that we were free to enjoy our tasting menu with no stress – and it was delicious. I can’t decide if my favourite was the pork belly or the rhubarb and custard crumble – all I know is it all tasted incredible.
Battlesteads is in the heart of Northumberland’s dark sky park, with some of the best night skies to be found in England. And we didn’t have to wait long – by 9pm, the Aurora alert was pinging and I was running outside to try and catch a photo. I’ve never managed to catch the Aurora before (not being willing to set an alarm in the middle of the night for anything other than a 100% certainty of seeing it), so I couldn’t believe my luck with it being visible at 9pm. Best dark skies in England indeed! If you love the night sky, you can’t do better than Battlesteads – they even have an onsite observatory.
Kielder Water & The Bull Crag Peninsula
Every time that we’re in this part of Northumberland, our number one choice for a walk is Kielder. This huge forest is the largest man made woodland in England, with the largest man made reservoir, and as well as countless walking trails is also home to 50% of England’s red squirrel population. Have I sold it to you yet?
Kielder has so many walks that we’re yet to do the same route twice. This time, we picked a walk from our Cicerone guide to Northumberland, a six mile stroll around the Bull Crag peninsula. Jutting into Kielder Water, this route is all on good paths and mostly (not entirely) flat, with the ever present lake making it hard to get lost. The route is also available on AllTrails should you not want to buy the guide.
I’m never sure how busy Kielder is going to be: it’s a well known outdoor lovers paradise for walkers, bikes and horse riders, but it’s vast enough that often we have our walks here entirely to ourselves. We got there early just in case, and enjoyed a lovely stroll through the forest with just the odd mountain biker for company. It was only at the very end of the walk as we were getting close to Kielder Waterside again that we started to see more dog walkers.
Given that this is only a moderate stroll due to length rather than incline, I couldn’t believe how much my feet were aching by the end. I’m not sure if it was the combination of walking boots and hard tracks or just a winter of inactivity, but I definitely need to get out more and get fitter! I managed to power through and still thoroughly enjoying the walk: the sun was shining on the water, the dogs loved the route and they even got to enjoy a swim in Kielder Water.
It’s worth mentioning that originally I’d had my eye on a route from our Pocket Mountains guide starting from Tower Knowe, which navigates around the Bull Crag Peninsula to reach Kielder Waterside, before getting the Osprey ferry back to the start. This got derailed by the fact the ferry wasn’t running or I’d have loved to do this.
Housesteads
We’d finished up a Kielder by lunchtime, so after a quick stop in Hexham to grab some lunch at Waitrose (you have to take advantage when your nearest Waitrose is usually more than an hour away) we drove across to Housesteads for some more Romans. Like Chesters, we’d been here before, but last time we managed to get locked in after walking down to Sycamore Gap and ended up scrambling down the wall to get back down to the car park. This time we made sure to time it well before closing!
Housesteads is the best preserved fort on Hadrian’s Wall and I still find it absolutely fascinating, despite having been three times now. It’s hard to imagine what it must have been like in its heyday – a bustling outpost on the northern frontier of the Roman Empire, stuffed full of soldiers and horses. Housesteads is an anomaly in that its bathhouse is within the walls of the fort: usually the bathhouse would be located outside (as at Chesters), suggesting that the area around Housesteads was especially violent and prone to attack.
Housesteads is a popular starting point for the walk down to Sycamore Gap, although we didn’t head down there this time. I just don’t think I want to go and see the empty space which was such a special spot before – it would make me too sad. I’d rather keep remembering it as I last saw it on our trip back in 2019.
We were all (dogs included) knackered by this point, and conceded defeat: it was time to head back to Battlesteads. We could still soak up the long overdue sunshine though, as the lodges come with an outside terrace where you can sit to enjoy the afternoon sun: with the clever placement of one of the chairs, you can turn this into an enclosed area so that even the dogs can enjoy some chilled outside time.
Battlesteads Observatory
Having enjoyed our tasting menu so much the night before, we opted to stay at Battlesteads for dinner that evening. This time, we ate from the normal restaurant menu – we’d glimpsed the parmesan fries being delivered to other tables the night before and they were calling our name! If you choose to visit Battlesteads, note that you need to book the tasting menu in advance.
We both opted for a starter, main and pudding (we were on holiday, after all, and it was too good to resist). Sam started with pan fried rabbit while I had a fabulous baked brie and cranberry dish, we both had the burger, and then Sam finished with an Affogato while I just about squeezed in some ice cream. I may have waddled rather than walked back to our room…
I didn’t have all evening to dwell on how full I was: I’d booked on to one of the star gazing events at the on site observatory. Starting at 9pm, the event was one of several running throughout the week (including earlier and later times to suit various audiences). The events last for around two hours and are packed full of opportunities to see the stars and planets up close through the telescope, as well as learning all about the night sky.
After a quick briefing, including a rundown of the evening and instructions on how to use binoculars (eye opening in a whole new sense of the term), we were out gazing up at the night sky. The amount of stars you can see in Northumberland is astonishing: and with the observatory’s state of the art telescope, we all got to see the moon, Sirius and Jupiter up close. Being able to see the stripes on Jupiter was pretty mind-blowing and makes you realise just how tiny you are in the grand scheme of things. Then, it was just a 1 minute walk back to our room! Much better than a long drive to an accommodation elsewhere.
The Temple of Mithras
After a hearty Northumbrian breakfast to set us up for the day, we said goodbye to Battlesteads and set off for one last walk. We’d visited both Chesters and Housesteads before, but there are plenty of other, smaller sites along Hadrian’s Wall that we’ve still not visited. Sam likes to have a peruse of Google Maps whenever we’re away to see what’s nearby, and this time he found that we weren’t too far at all from the Temple of Mithras.
Easily missed, the Temple of Mithras is accessed from a pay & display car park and then a short walk across a field – it’s vaguely signposted with finger posts, but almost completely hidden from view until you’re suddenly there. Smaller than I was expecting for a temple, it’s nonetheless well preserved for something so old, including three ceremonial pillars. There’s an information board explaining how the temple would have worked (which definitely made it sound like more of a cult than a religion).
As it’s only a 5 minute walk from the car park to the temple, we extended our visit by doing a 4 mile walk from our Cicerone ‘Short Walks Hadrian’s Wall‘ guide book which started from the same car park. The route wasn’t hugely inspiring (although the grey weather was certainly a disappointment compared to the day before, which didn’t help).
There’s a lot of walking through grassy fields, with one short section where you walk alongside a section of Hadrian’s Wall, and a visit to Limestone Corner – the northernmost point of the Roman frontier. We did start to get some nicer views towards the end, and it was extremely quiet – until we ran into what was obviously a Duke of Edinburgh training expedition. I’ve never heard so much shrieking over a puddle! There’s a fair chunk of road walking but this was all on very quiet lanes. The route (including a visit to the Temple of Mithras) is available on AllTrails.
It’s worth noting this walk has a few stiles along the way, including a ladder stile or two. We were debating the best way to manoeuvre Coal over the second one when he got fed up of waiting for us and raced up and down it on his own, without us: clearly he’s missed his calling as an agility dog! Several of the fields we crossed (not all) were empty, but I think that was just luck/time of year: I think you could expect to see sheep or cows (or both) on this walk.
Dog friendly rating: 5/5. We had such a lovely stay at Battlesteads. It’s such a help to be able to leave the dogs in our room while we eat – no one knows stress like a reactive dog owner praying nothing sets their dog off while you’re all sat down eating together. The doggy welcome packs were very appreciated, including treats, poo bags and a rabbit ear chew (more available to purchase at the bar). Battlesteads also provided us with dog towels to use during our stay, and there is a dedicated muddy paws wash area outside too. The luxury lodges were super spacious and meant there was room for all of us without the dogs getting underfoot. And it’s not just dogs who are welcome – cats are allowed too!
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