The fort lies a half mile uphill from the car park.
Hadrian’s Wall Heritage Site is a fragile environment – you can help protect one of the great wonders of the world by following the Walker’s Code: Always keep to the signed paths Avoid walking alongside the Wall when ground is wet Walking on the Wall can cause it to collapse Remember the Countryside Code Entry to the fort is through a small museum, displaying a complete model of how Housesteads once appeared - there is a charge for this but there is no need to visit the fort or the museum to access the cache. Excavations at the fort have revealed four double-portal gateways, the turreted curtain wall, three barrack blocks and of course the famous and well-preserved latrines. At the centre are the most important buildings: the commandant's house, head-quarters building and hospital. Housesteads - known as 'Vercovicium' ('the place of effective fighters') to the Romans - is one of the most complete Roman forts in Britain and now the most popular site on the Wall. It stands high on the exposed Whin Sill escarpment, commanding breathtaking views of both England to the south and Scotland to the north. There is a section of Wall by the forest where you MAY WALK ON THE WALL and experience the elements as the Roman soldiers did. Construction of Hadrian's Wall along the northern frontier of Roman Britain began in AD 122 and took 6 years to complete. Work on Housesteads began around AD 124, one of about twenty major forts that were added to the wall. A regiment of around 800 to 1000 men would have been stationed here. To the south of the Wall was a road, the Military Way, and a ditch called the Vallum, and to the north a V-shaped defensive ditch called a berm. The Vallum was built after the Wall and was an earthwork construction running the length of the frontier from the Tyne to the Solway. The Vallum, a wide, steep-sided and flat-bottomed ditch, flanked by two regularly shaped mounds of the material excavated, was about 8 m wide at its top, 2.5m at the bottom and originally 2 m in depth. It was generally built 50 to 90 metres behind the Wall and defined the rear of the military zone, controlling movement of people into the military area. The cache can be located along the westbound path from Houseteads before reaching Rapishaw Gap and the path off that is the Pennine Way - down the hillside from Milecastle 37 – you’ve seen the picture of the Saxon Arch in all the local Information Centres!