This is a fantastic little volunteer run air museum. Staff extremly helpfull & friendly. We went on…read morea Sunday arfternoon & was pleasantly supprised at the access to the aircraft, especially the Vulcan Bomber. There is a well informed museum, It was a pleasure not to surrounded by hordes of people. Good athentic location next to Carlisle Airport. I didn't realise there was a voucher availible untill writing this review but am more than happy to support volunteers efforts. No cafe but the reception did provide hot & cold drinks, crisps.

Housesteads is the remnants of the Roman barracks and fort on Hadrians Wall in Northumbria…read more You get a free entrance if you are a member of either National trust or English heritage - haven't seen many places that accept both. You also have to walk up to the entrance point from the car park, about 10 min or so. The site consists of two parts: a museum, where you get a bit of history and a short education film and fort (or ruins of fort), which is a much bigger area. You also get to see the wall!

During our visit to Hadrian's Wall, we stopped at the Housesteads Roman Fort & Museum. The…read moreHousestead's Fort is the best preserved of all the Roman forts along Hadrian's Wall. Construction on Hadrian's Wall began in 122 AD and was completed in 6 years time; it spans 73 miles and was a defensive fortification in Roman Britain. It separated Roman Britain from the barbarians of the North. Hadrian's Wall was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1987. It's definitely cool to see in person as the wall spans miles and we seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. The museum is a short walk up from the parking lot where you can learn about the story of the fort and its garrison. There is a visitor's center near the parking lot as well with restrooms and a gift shop. There are light bites and hot drinks available at both.

this museum is actually inside Carlisle Castle in Queen Mary's Tower and is well worth a visit…read morewhile you are there. It is free to get in once you have paid to get into the Castle and it has many displays of uniforms, weapons, equipment, musical instruments, and the most interesting part for me was seeing the personal items of soldiers and reading their stories. That really made it feel more real to me. In the museum there is also a mock up of what it would have been like in one of the trenches in WW1 my boys really enjoyed this part. There are two floors to this museum and it is amazing what they have packed into such a relatively small area. There is a small gift shop here too selling items relating to the regiment and the army in general and I believe they also hold a lot of archive records and will do research for you but they will ask for a donation towards the running of the museum.

Came here on the way down south. Only had limited time, but this castle was on our route. Has an…read moreinteresting part in history and was free for us EH members. For 500 years, until the English and Scottish crowns were united in 1603, Carlisle Castle was the principal fortress of England's north-western border with Scotland. Unlike most medieval castles, it has been continuously occupied since its foundation by William II in 1092. When Mary, Queen of Scots fled from her rebellious subjects to England in May 1567, she was housed for some weeks here. This was the last time the castle was used as a royal residence. These are just some of the countless interesting facts. There's a lot more to see, learn and read. Funnily enough just the day before we've visited Linlinthgow Palace, the birthplace of Mary. You can visit lots of rooms, can walk on the walls. You can see the prison cells and much more. Its' a highly interesting castle. There is also Cumbria's Museum of Military Life on site, if you got some time on your hands. A museum shop, toilets and a café/restaurant. Picnic tables outside as well. All in all a very interesting visit. We only had 2-3 hours time, but you could easily spend a day here.

From the outside a very nice building with a piece of well-kept lawn. For our group, however, the…read moreadmission fee was a touch expensive, so we left the charms of the interior to wealthier people. Zvenku velmi pěkná stavba s opečovávaným trávníkem. Pro naši skupinku ovšem poněkud dražší vstupné, takže kouzla interiéru jsme nechali movitějším :)

The place is okay, but the altitude ! Urrrgh! The lady from gift shop ORDERED me to throw my drink…read moreaway before entering the shop. She could have asked nicely and explained that. Instead, she forced me to throw it away and when I asked if I can leave it at the counter, so that I can continue my purchase, she said that the counter (which the cashier and some pamphlets are on) is too valuable and forced me to leave instantly. Does customers look like shit to her, or she is just being racist? Either way, I would definitely not recommend this place to anyone I know. Very bad experience.

Came for a roman exhibition and battle display, it was very good, they had working catapults etc…read moreand put on a fighting display..

A low, late morning sun through bleak winter trees covered in moss and frost.....a quintessential…read moreEnglish countryside view....and unbelievably beautiful. We happened upon Hadrian's Wall by accident on a freezing Saturday morning, having seen the brown tourists signs to a desination that has been on my "bucket list" since I was about 13 and learned about it in school on the other side of the world. How magical to just happen upon it one morning, quite by mistake! The Roman Fort in Birdoswald was practically empty - but we were still greeted with smiles and banter and the good news that Scottish Heritage cards mean free entry to the Fort. Excellent - that entrance fee will go on coffee & cake after a wee explore! The exhibition itself is well laid-out and with enough mixed media to keep even bored people interested, although I always wonder about the artists who make the replica food for these installations - I don't think Hiroshi Nagashima will be handing out any stars! That being said, the information is excellent and the museum is a good yet relatively brief introduction to the Wall and the history of this particular area of it; I do recommend buying the small booklet on the history of the Wall - especially when entry is free. Walking around the grounds, there are further boards and the frosty morning really was the most amazing time to see it - the Wall itself is an incredible feat; the tramworks people in Edinburgh could learn a lot, considering the Wall spans the width of the entire country and was completed in 7 years - and is still in pretty good condition hundreds of years later! The wee cafe is clean, functional and not uncomfortable. More importantly, the coffee is good and the malteser slice we decided to share was good enough to make us wonder if sharing wasn't the way to go! We will definitely come back and do some walking along the wall when we have appropriate shoes - for now, it was just a thrill to touch it, to see it, to have a magical morning become even more so with the reminder of amazing things it's possible to simply stumble upon.

I accidentally stumbled upon this place on a day trip from Hadrian's Wall. Really cool little…read moremuseum with gruesome and interesting history. I like places that are off the beaten path, so this satisfied my curiosity. They have cool exhibits with wax figures, costumes you can try on, and part of an old dungeon. They also have good student discounts. The Gaol is situated in old Hexham, right by the Abbey. Go ahead and satisfy your macabre sense of humour!

Built in 1311 it was one of the first buildings that was built to be a proper jail. you can get…read morestuck in the stocks outside or go down to the dungeon though not for long. There is a commentary from people who used to live in the times of the border reviers which comes on autmotically and lots of info about the jail break here in the 1600 and the lives of the prisoners It also has the border libary and a film on a riever raid, you are much better going to one of the bastles or towers on the borders to get a fee of what it would be like in riever times it has a nice little shop in it a intersting place to learn more about the history of Hexham but it is very hard to imagine being imprisoned here The only eerie thing is the skull of Sir john fenwick a jacobite who was beheaded for treason

With well-preserved parts of Hadrian's Wall nearby, we stopped at the Chesters Roman Fort and…read moreMuseum to pick up an information booklet after checking out Hadrian's Wall. But while we were there, how could we say no to some cream tea? Especially since we happened to be there when the weather was beautiful, with clear skies above, where you can bet your but we enjoyed some tasty cream tea in perfect weather. So while we didn't buy a ticket to check out the exterior structure (the Roman Fort), we went into the museum instead. Probably weren't supposed to do that without a ticket, though there wasn't anyone at the museum. Which kind of... surprised me, because there were some seriously neat things inside of it. (The current rate is £6.60, btw, which is different to what others previously posted.) The museum was reallllly neat. Pillars, grave stones, milestones, altars, building stones. And a lot of these items weren't behind glass; they were propped up in shelves or just straight there on the floor. You could touch them, though I'm sure that's frowned upon. Their inscriptions read stuff like, "Building stone with relief of bore." Vindalanda. Or "Dedication to the Goddess Covventina by Titus D. Cosconianus, prefect of the first cohort of Batavians. The Goddess holds a water lily leaf in her right hand, and water flows from a pitcher by her left elbow." And "Tombstone of a Longinus a trumpeter (bucinator)." The museum is called the Clayton Museum, and he was an antiquarian whom excavated sites along Hadrians Wall, which were stored and displayed in the museum. Like I said, very interesting! We spent about 20 minutes exploring this place, and even that was a pretty thorough exploration of the museum. Definitely check it out if you have a particular interest in old architecture.

An interesting set of Roman remains with a small museum and cafe and shop. The site is one of the…read morebest-preserved fortifications of Hadrian's Wall and commands a fine view of the river Tyne. Some of the interpretation is in poor condition.

I already knew a lot about Roman history but Peter was able to add so many wonderful details and we…read morehad a great discussion of the meaning of the wall to historians and debated the reasons for its building. Not your average tour. A very sophisticated guide!

The day we spent with Peter Carney was the highlight of our UK trip. His knowledge of Roman…read morehistory and the area were invaluable as was his easygoing personality. We were picked up at our B&B in Haltwhistle and driven to some of the very best sections of Hadrian's wall and 2 museums (Roman Army Museum and Vindolanda). Without Peter's insight and knowledge, we would have missed some of the most important features, construction and history of the wall and the fort at Vindolanda. Because Peter knows the archeologists at Vindolanda, we were able to get the "inside scoop" of the artifacts discovered the day we visited. We even held some of the day's artifacts in our hands while one of the lead archeologist explained where they were digging and what they were finding. Peter made the the history Hadirian's Wall come alive, and we thoroughly enjoyed our day. Email: petercarney@hadrianswall-walk.com http://www.hadrianswall-walk.com