You can read about it in dusty books or take twee guided tours into it, but if you really want to get a grip on Britain’s history, you need to walk it.

Here, four writers step back in time, each cherry-picking a weekend segment from one of Britain’s most momentous pathways – two days retracing the steps of famous kings, queens, pilgrims, Neolithic cavemen and Welsh marauders with a night halfway in a suitably cobbled hostelry. Hiking, heritage and public houses: we can’t think of a better way to embrace the autumn.

Hadrian’s Wall
Vincent Crump

The trail: it took 10 years and £6 million to create, after a turbulent campaign to subdue the revolting farmers of Britain’s northern wilderness country. Not Hadrian’s Wall – Hadrian’s Wall National Trail.

The footpath follows the 84-mile line of the Roman monument from coast to coast – from Segedunum fort, in downtown Newcastle, to the Solway Firth. Completed in 2003 – at twice the cost of Hadrian’s original rampart – it made the imperial frontier accessible for the first time.

As for the wall, historians now reckon it was more about control than defence. Its evenly spaced “milecastles” were not for fighting – they were gatehouses through which mud-encrusted Iron Agers would drive their animals and pay their tolls. They now lie in assorted degrees of romantic disarray, numbered 1 to 79, waiting to be ticked off by trekkers.

The weekend: it is 7pm at Milecastle 49. Dusk is bunching around Birdoswald fort, but I can’t move on until I’ve found my phallus. It’s not strictly my phallus, of course. It was left here by the 20th Legion, scored into one of the squarish sandstone bricks for luck when they finished building this section of Hadrian’s Wall in AD122.

I’m nearing the end of my march along Hadrian’s Wall – and, actually, the whole trip has felt like detective work. I’ve walked the best surviving section of the rampart, the 22-mile middle stretch from Chollerford to Birdoswald, but even here, the wall has been an elusive companion.

The Romans built it 15ft high, 10ft wide and spiked with fortified towers, to show the wretched barbarians who was boss. But today it plays hide and seek as I stride across empty hilltops and lonely gullies. Sometimes the wall is no more than a bouldery wormcast; then, suddenly, it will rear up out of the turf in a dozen stout courses, so that I have to stand on tiptoe to see the view.

In a funny way, though, this adds to the specialness of the experience. Any day-tripper can drive to the archeological dig at Vindolanda, or to Chesters fort, with its excavated Roman bath, but they may find the epic atmosphere dented by a swarm of eight-year-olds wielding gift-shop swords.

I started my hike at Chesters yesterday. I was more than happy to walk away from the coach parties, and, within a mile or two, found myself completely alone at Black Carts Turret, where a wide stripe of wall loomed out of the scraggy pasture and the views rolled all the way to Scotland.

At Sycamore Gap, where Kevin Costner mysteriously turned up in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, a stoat popped out of the masonry to say hello. And by the time I’d climbed the wind-pummelled crag to Housesteads fort, the past had claimed me. In my imagination, I was one of the 1,000 Hadrianic infantrymen who were once barracked there, right on the edge of empire.

At Birdoswald, where I’ll finish my walk tonight, you really can lodge like a legionary, at a hikers’ bunkhouse inside the fort’s foundations. And my digs last night felt almost as elemental – Gibbs Hill Farm is underneath the Great Whin Sill, where Hadrian’s Wall surfs along the crest of a sheer silver cliff that breaks like a petrified wave across the plain.

This is the iconic stretch of wall you see on every souvenir mug and mouse mat, and at Gibbs Hill, the Gibson family still rake their sheep from low to high ground daily, just as people did in Roman times. My bedroom was supercomfy, and breakfast involved barn eggs and free-range conversation with Valerie Gibson, while a newborn lamb mewled on the hearth rug.

The details: Gibbs Hill Farm (01434 344030, www.gibbshillfarm.co.uk) has doubles from £56, B & B. Birdoswald hostel (0870 770 6124) has bunks from £14. The AD122 bus runs daily between the Hadrian’s Wall forts until October 28; the last service back from Birdoswald to Chesters goes at 5.10pm. For a timetable and more information, visit www.nationaltrail.co.uk/hadrianswall.

The Ridgeway
Paul Croughton

The trail: the Ridgeway stretches west to east for 85 miles, and back about 5,300 years. Prehistoric man once stomped along the chalk-ridge route that ran from the Dorset coast to the Wash, in East Anglia, making this Britain’s oldest road. Since then, it has been a favourite for invading hordes of Viking and Saxon warriors, medieval drovers moving cattle, traders taking wares to market and, more recently, the tightly attired on horseback and mountain bike. It was opened as a National Trail in 1973, and includes Stone Age and Bronze Age sites, as well as a rather more modern, and better guarded, point of interest – the prime minister’s country house, Chequers.

The weekend: I began my section of the trail in Chinnor, near Bledlow Cross, one of many white chalk landmarks along the route that were scratched into the ground a few hundred years ago – though nobody knows quite when. From there, it’s an easy few miles to the small town of Princes Risborough. The terrain is comfortable, despite our moist summer, but the paths do get more sticky after rainfall. With a few booming hellos to startled cows, I headed uphill toward a more substantial sign, Whiteleaf Cross. It appears through trees, broad and pale against the grubby greens of the field. One story has it that in the 18th century, it was altered from its original form, a grand phallus, by censorious monks, who considered it rather bad form for the locals to be reminded daily of their baser leanings.

There’s history old and new here, not least a Neolithic barrow, which has also yielded much Roman pottery during its excavations, and first world war practice trenches. I was tempted to explore further, but, knowing what was round the corner, I powered on. The Plough, at Cadsden, is a favourite lunch stop for walkers and locals alike. The food is excellent – I put the full weight of The Sunday Times behind the fish and chips.

Suitably fortified, it was back up to the views of Coombe Hill, the highest point in the Chilterns, down past Chequers – the Ridgeway actually crosses the drive, and you’re stalked all the way by surveillance cameras – then on to the quaint market town of Wendover, and another treat.

Opposite the Red Lion, a 17th-century coaching inn that has hosted Oliver Cromwell and Robert Louis Stevenson and is my home for the night, is a place called Rumsey’s. Pop in and, soon enough, someone will ask what business you have here. Don’t fret, it’s just a test. Say the password – “I’ll have a large hot chocolate, please” – and you will be given a taste of the greatest, most restorative and sexually provocative liquid you’ll find anywhere without the healing powers of alcohol. One large mug of that, for £2.20, and you’ll fancy you could do another 10 miles. Blindfolded. On one leg. In 20 minutes.

The next morning was spent crossing the beech and conifer woods of Wendover. Well marked and well maintained, the undulating trail, amid the changing colours of the forest, makes for an excellent five miles’ work. Then it’s Tring Park, more undulations, and on toward Ivinghoe Beacon five or so miles hence, the end point of the Ridgeway.

Looking out over the three counties far below, like a rustic jigsaw, I thought back to those ancient hikers who once stood where I stood, the crosswind toying playfully with their fur coats. I bet they felt a small sense of achievement as they surveyed their prehistoric panorama from on high. For a brief moment, I allowed myself to share and savour that feeling, letting the dull ache in my feet and knees stand for something more than just the last 21 miles. That done, I nodded sagely and ambled off for an ice cream.

The details: the Plough (01844 343302) serves lunch from midday to 2pm and closes at 3pm during the week. It’s open all day at the weekend. The Red Lion (01296 622266, www.marstonsinnsandtaverns.co.uk) has doubles from £75, B&B. It’s being refurbished from October to March; try the Five Bells Vintage Inn (0845 112 6095, www.innkeeperslodge.com), down the road in Weston Turville. Rumsey’s (01296 625060, www.rumseys.co.uk) serves homemade chocolates and light lunches. For more information, visit www.nationaltrail.co.uk/ridgeway and www.visitbuckinghamshire.org.

The Pilgrims’ Way
Richard Green

The trail: rising with the Downs themselves, the North Downs Way follows southern England’s upper crease of chalk hills from Farnham to Dover. While the White Cliffs halt the downs 400ft above the Channel, the Way loops across Kent to trace the pilgrims’ route to Canterbury.

Much of it is ancient pathway, but that hasn’t stopped romantics pegging it to the pilgrims, who trekked to the shrine of the “turbulent priest”, Thomas à Becket – murdered in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170.

Popular recognition of the Pilgrims’ Way came in 1871, when the Ordnance Survey put it on the map. Then came Hilaire Belloc’s 1904 book The Old Road and the 1944 Powell/Pressburger film A Canterbury Tale. Now the name has stuck.

The weekend: it’s a bit rich to claim comradeship with a bunch of medieval pilgrims who were probably battered, beaten and exhausted, but walking down St Dunstan’s Street, in Canterbury, with the cathedral just a staff-sling away, I was elated.

I’d started my walk 22 miles earlier in the pretty Kent village of Charing. The trail is suitably unpretentious, combining loosely connected sections of metalled road, chalk paths and tracks through fields.

Just as the pilgrims would have, I rested by the triumphantly beautiful flintstone church in Boughton DAY2 Aluph, surrounded by lushC fields and hedgerows, and unusual for its external DAY1 fireplace. It still feels a haven, and well it might – pilgrims Boughton mustered here before crossing the King’s Wood, a place infamous for robbers.

From here, the scenery was stupendous. First you walk through an archetypal Kentish farm, with a weathered farmhouse and barn. A left turn takes up along a drover’s track, with a sheep run on the right. Next, a park-bench-sized chalk platform that could have been carved for Constable, so panoramic and pastoral is its outlook. I sat down with an apple, lazily picked blackberries and almost burst into Elgar.

The shade was thick and cool in the King’s Wood, and there, off to my right through a frame of foliage, was Canterbury Cathedral. It was speared by a shaft of sunlight, like a poster for a religious epic, and jutted from the plain more like a geological feature than anything crafted by man. It was still eight miles away.

Three miles further, I was glad of Chilham’s Tudor square and the inglenooked bar of the Woolpack Inn. The building dates back to the 15th century, and there are 14 pleasant bedrooms. The staff are friendly, and a comfy brick-and-brass restaurant serves Kentish lamb and trout.

Leaving Chilham, the route passes through modern orchards, where rows of squat bushes bulge with apples – in stark contrast to No Man’s Orchard, a little farther on. This is a magical patch of common land where proper tree-shaped trees cast their shadows over a thick carpet of meadow.

A left turn brings you to the hilly village of Upper Harbledown, thought to be the Bob Up and Down of Chaucer’s tales. Decide for yourself over a pint in the garden of the Old Coach and Horses.

From here, it’s a stroll into Canterbury, past the old pilgrim lodges and into the high-vaulted cathedral itself. Just be thankful you don’t, like the pilgrims, have to go back the way you came.

The details: the Woolpack Inn (01227 730351, www.woolpackchilham.co.uk) has doubles from £85, B&B. For assisted walks with your bags carried, contact Walk Awhile (01227 752762, www.walkawhile.co.uk). For trail information, visit www.nationaltrail.co.uk/northdowns.

Offa’s Dyke
Ed Grenby

The trail: how significant was Offa’s Dyke? Ask those unfortunate enough to be caught on the wrong side of it. “It was customary for the English to cut off the ears of every Welshman who was found to the east of the dyke,” claimed the 19th-century scholar George Borrow, “and for the Welsh to hang every Englishman whom they found to the west of it.”CStreet Thought to have been constructed late in the 8th century as a border between the kingdoms of Mercia and Powys, King Offa’s handiwork is still discernable along much of its march from the River Severn to the Irish Sea. Walking the length of the dyke takes 12 days, but it’s a tough one to break into sections. Which is why some of the best bite-size bits actually wander off the route.

The weekend: it was crunch time at Caggle Street. The Offa’s Dyke Trail and the Three Castles Walk had been sharing the path for a while now, but in this Monmouthshire village their ways diverged. Left lay the next 150-odd miles of Offa; right, a 19-mile round trip involving three terrific medieval castles, two splendid boozers and one night in what is probably the world’s only B&B run by a practising orthopaedic surgeon.

I went right, thankfully, and the rest of the weekend was spent among gently sloping hills, billowing across the landscape like a duvet shaken out in the sun. The dark, dramatic, brooding Black Mountains were kept at a comfortable but satisfyingly visible distance, and most of the walking was through winsomely farmed fields. Sheep nibbled thistles in some, turnips grew in others. One was an apple orchard with the smell of cider so heavy in the air that I started zigzagging; and the path was punctuated by stiles and streams and lined with exquisitely tart wild blackberries.

Six miles later, I descended a hill called Edmund’s Tump into the village of Grosmont. Here stands the oldest of the three castles (there was something there as early as the 12th century), complete with portcullis grooves, drawbridge mechanisms, crenellated turrets, arrow slits and a history of battles, sieges and that charming practice of catapulting dead animals over the walls to spread disease.

Next door is the Angel, a pub bought off the brewery by the villagers, and now run more for the common good than for profit – which is, presumably, why half the drinks seem to be on the house, my sausages – as fat as cucumbers – were so underpriced, and the place was still agreeably thronged when I called it a night at 3am and rolled into bed at the orthopaedic surgeon’s place, Gentle Jane.

It’s a gorgeous B&B, timber-beamed, tastefully modernised and with fantastic, locally sourced homemade food. The smoked salmon tasted so smoked salmony, it made me wonder if I’d been eating the cardboard packaging instead of the salmon all these years.

After five more miles across fields and through a forest of oaks as old as Offa, I found Skenfrith. Another castle – this one even better, with a secret water gate – and a fine pub lunch, at the Bell.

A piffling seven miles took me on to the White Castle (Jackpot! A moat that still has water in it, and a tower you can climb for stunning feudal-level views across the Monnow Valley). And there, only yards away, the Offa’s Dyke Trail and the Three Castles Walk met, just short of where I’d started. I nodded cheerily at some poor drudges slogging on up the long trail to Prestatyn.

The details: Gentle Jane (01981 241655, www.gentlejane.co.uk) has doubles from £80, B&B. The Angel (01981 240646, web.ukonline.co.uk/kathyp); the Bell at Skenfrith (01600 750235, www.skenfrith.co.uk) For more information, visit www.nationaltrail.co.uk/offasdyke and www.monmouthshire.gov.uk. Celtic Trails (01291 689774, www.celtic-trails.com) can organise a walk on either route.

— For further information, visit www.enjoyengland.com/ruralescapes, or www.walking.visitwales.com

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