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Walltown Country Park

Walltown Country Park lies on the line of Hadrian’s Wall, near the village of Greenhead.

45 years ago, this site was a working quarry, where the hard whinstone was blasted with dynamite to provide road stone for the expanding road network of the early 20th Century. After it closed in 1976, the quarry was filled in and landscaped, planted with trees and flowers, and today is a haven for wildlife and nature.

It is a place to relax, watch wildlife and feed the ducks, but you can also find adventure in its meadows and woodlands and get a real taste of the wild!

Please note: Swimming is not permitted at Walltown Country Park. Hidden hazards and extreme low water temperatures can be fatal. Please be responsible and consider your safety and the safety of those around you.

Walltown Visitor Centre

Our Walltown Visitor Centre is currently closed for the winter season and will reopen in April.

Our refurbished visitor centre with its wood-burning stove and inviting seating area is the ideal place to enjoy some comfort. At key times through the week, our visitor welcome assistant will be on-site to provide information and sell refreshments including hot and cold drinks, cold snacks and a small range of merchandise.

The car park, toilets (including disabled) and a Changing Places facility is open day and night, throughout the year.

Walltown Visitors Centre

The refurbishment and development of the visitor centre at Walltown Country Park has been made possible thanks to funding from the RDPE Growth Programme, which provided 80% of the £108,000 investment.

West on the Wall

Recent improvements at both Walltown Country Park and Cawfields, funded by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development, have been completed following an investment of £423,400.

The improvements include a new and improved visitor centre at Walltown which opened in 2019, an indoor activity building for landscape and nature based activities and the transformation of visitor facilities at Cawfields including provision of an accessible, all-weather eating area, upgraded washrooms and toilets and an information room for visitors.

European Agricultural Fund Rural Development logos

Walk to Wellbeing at Walltown

Find out more about our Walk to Wellbeing programme with adventurer Steve Upton and his daughter Lily exploring our Walltown Country Park site.

Walltown At Night

Because we have such wonderfully dark skies up here, Northumberland National Park is also a designated International Dark Sky Park. Walltown Country Park is the perfect place to view our dark skies. Keep an eye on our events pages for stargazing events that will be taking place throughout the year.

The Milky Way above Walltown Crags
The lake at Walltown Country Park at night
A building at Walltown Country at night with a sea of stars above

The History of Walltown

Opened in 1876, Walltown Quarry was the largest ‘whinstone quarry’ on Hadrian’s Wall and produced huge quantities of road chippings. Some of the characteristics that make the Whin Sill an impressive landscape also make it useful to man and a commercially viable stone to quarry. Its hardness and resistance to wear or becoming polished by wear are just the properties needed to make modern road surfaces.

A photo of the quarry at Walltown taken in 1985

The ‘whinstone’ at Walltown is part of a series of huge sheets of dolerite which underlie large parts of northeast England and known collectively as the Whin Sill. This same rock crops out east of here in a ridge extending to Sewingshields Crag, then again at Craster, the Farne Islands and Bamburgh; and to the south at High Cup Nick and High Force in County Durham.

A view of Walltown Quarry from the 1980s

All the quarrying and the kerbstone and sett making (setts are squared blocks for paving roads), was done by hand in the nineteenth century, with machines to make the job easier being introduced as technology developed.

Peace Labyrinth

A chance to walk through thousands of willow plants in 20 different colours. It was designed by artists Glynis Rose and Ruth Gowland and planted in 2011. The project was initially developed and managed by the artists in conjunction with Ron Moule of Twhist Community Arts.

The Peace Labyrinth at Walltown

The Peace Labyrinth constructed at Walltown is based on the pattern of the seven-path Cretan labyrinth. More than 1000 willow trees have been planted to create the walls, using over 20 different varieties and a range of colours. The trees, once fully grown, will form a giant labyrinth measuring more than 150 feet in diameter. With only one path in and out, there is no chance of getting lost.

Getting there

Car:

From the A1, travel west along the A69. At the Junction near Greenhead (west of Haltwhistle), turn right, drive through Greenhead and up the hill for 1 mile on the B6318 until you reach the T-junction signposting ‘Walltown Quarry’ and ‘The Roman Army Museum’. Drive 500m and Walltown is just beyond the Roman Army Museum.

From the M6, travel east along the A69. At the Junction near Greenhead, turn left, drive through Greenhead and up the hill for 1 mile on the B6318 until you reach the T-junction signposting ‘Walltown Quarry’ and ‘The Roman Army Museum’. Drive 500m and Walltown is just beyond the Roman Army Museum.

Bus:

The Hadrian’s Wall Bus AD122 stops at Walltown.

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Dave Richardson and family

Dave Richardson

Volunteer Coordinator

With a young family, we find ourselves returning to Walltown Country Park on Hadrian’s Wall time after time. We take a picnic and walk our dogs. The accessible paths are great for our three-year-old on his balance bike and there’s plenty of space for him to run around.