Hadrian's Wall is a World Heritage Site and one of Britain's most visited historical monuments. It is 80 Roman miles long, which is about 73 English miles or 120 kilometres, the largest Roman antiquity in Britain and in the Roman Empire. In recent years there has been a substantial growth in archaeological work at several sites along the Wall, and more evidence is becoming available about the people who lived and worked along it during the period of Roman administration in Britain.

There are things to see at most of the 18 forts along the line of the Wall: the two main English Heritage sites and five others are quite widely advertised, but most of the others are little known by visitors. Also little known are the many interesting milecastles, turrets, and other features of the Wall, and most have little or no on-site information for you.

The Wall was not an isolated structure; it was a deep defensive system with outpost forts and with support forts in the rear, all linked by a road system (some of which is still in use!) to local supply and maintenance depots and to legionary fortresses a hundred miles or more to the south at York and Chester. The whole Wall zone is vast! It is by far the biggest of the three Roman frontiers in Britain and by far the most visible: the first-century Domitianic frontier along the edge of the Highlands and the mid-second-century Antonine Wall, both in Scotland, have few remains to be seen on the ground.

There are many other features to visit in the Wall zone: there are remains of two Roman cities and of several villages; evidence for farming, industry, and commerce; major Roman roads and two large bridges; several temples and many altars to Roman, local British, and eastern deities; bath-houses and shops; and an outstanding series of museums with important finds and with fine reconstructions of temples, houses, shops, a military bath house, a fort gateway, a barrack, other military buildings, and the Wall itself. Hadrian's Wall is an important reservoir of information about both military and civilian life in the Roman Empire. And of course there is a wealth of later, post-Roman material - Anglo-Saxon churches, Medieval castles, post-Medieval country houses, and incunabula of the Industrial revolution.