Last updated 05:28, Friday, 30 May 2008

Walks can be solitary occasions, time to reflect on the ways of the world as you pace out the miles. Or they can be sociable, a few hours spent preferably with a knowledgeable, lively companion who, if you’re in country you don’t know, not only is sure which path to follow, but can fill you in on all sorts of local detail and draw your attention to the rocks and trees and birds.

Beginning or end? Bowness-on-Solway, where the wall ends and the coastal route begins

Hadrian’s Coastal Route: Ravenglass to Bowness-on-Solway by Clifford Jones. Tempus. £9.99

Clifford Jones seems just the right sort of companion and, as he comes not in ambulatory but book form, you can open and close him at will, which is very convenient.

Clifford is a great enthusiast. First he is an enthusiast for all things Roman. And especially things Roman west of the Wall.

The Romans extended their defences down the coast from Bowness-on-Solway probably as far as Ravenglass.

They needed to. The coast was the weakest part of the north-west frontier of their vast empire.

There was a series of mile-forts. You can’t see much on the ground, but Clifford’s imagination is compensation and if you go to Senhouse Museum, along with the dedicatory inscriptions and the other stones that have endured, there’s a reconstruction of a Roman watchtower.

“This,” we are told, “is the best opportunity to stand on a reconstruction of a watchtower, and it really will give a whole new perspective to how these relatively simple structures dominated the landscape.” Today, of course, the towers are being replaced by the elegant, benign windmills.

Clifford is a Roman archaeologist and his speciality is this part of the imperial frontier.

He wants “to shout from the rooftops that the Western Frontier is as important as the stones that cross the Pennines.”

He would have us “be part of history, walk a frontier lost for over 1,500 years”.

Luckily he doesn’t confine his enthusiasms to the Romans. We’re told the story of St Bees lighthouse. First erected in 1718 as trade grew on the west coast, it was topped with a coal grate, but the fire was inadequate, and, even more problematically, the smoke blanketed the light, and, inevitably, in 1822, with burning cinders in a high wind, the lighthouse burnt down. “The light is now automatic and electrically powered and controlled from Harwich.”

It is good having this sort of detail in a walking book. It brings the landscape to life and you walk through a country peopled with memories.

However, when we round Grune Point and come to Moricambe Bay, we are told to forget the Romans for a while and enjoy the abundant wildlife on the marshes.

Further on in Abbeytown, just across from Holm Cultram is the birthplace of Sir Walter Scott – this was news to me and, I suspect to most Scots, but, in fact, Abbeytown’s very own Sir Walter was born here when the novelist was well past his prime in 1826, and he made his name and knighthood building underground railways.

However, Clifford has one enthusiasm too far and that is a delight in inclement weather. Here he is walking along Drigg sands: “Drigg sands are a jewel and even in typical Cumbrian weather (horizontal rain at 40 mph) the walking is good to Seascale. Along this stretch the acidic grasslands and heaths support ling, dyer’s greenweed, bell heather, field gentian and adder’s tongue... listen out for the toads.”

Clifford wants people to share his pleasures, to come and explore the neglected west coast and the neglected Roman remains. This is just the sort of book to make people sit up, get up, lace up their boots and pick up their rucksacks.

Hadrian’s Coastal Route is available from Bookends, 56 Castle Street, Carlisle, and 66 Main Street, Keswick, and from www.bookscumbria.com.