Walltown Quarry Country Park

The old quarry at Walltown has been left to nature, and it's genuinely worth the detour if you're camping nearby. What was once a working stone extraction site is now a proper country park - steep limestone walls rising up around you, with pathways winding through recovering grassland and scrub. You can walk the rim or drop down into the quarry floor itself, where the scale of the excavation becomes clear. The views stretch across Northumberland moorland, and on a clear day you'll spot Hadrian's Wall in the distance.

History buffs will appreciate that this sits right on the Hadrian's Wall corridor - the Wall itself runs just north of here, and you can make a morning of combining both. Walkers get a decent loop of about an hour without breaking much sweat, though the terrain's uneven enough to keep things interesting. Families with younger kids might find it a bit samey after thirty minutes, but teenagers usually engage with the geology of it all.

It's free to access, and the bonus is parking - there's a small car park that rarely gets rammed. Spring brings wildflowers along the quarry edges; autumn's genuinely atmospheric with the stone glowing orange in low light. If you're based at Herding Hill Farm or Hadrian's Wall Campsite (both excellent, by the way), this makes an easy morning walk before heading into Haltwhistle for lunch. Bring decent boots - it gets boggy in places.