UK, Northumberland, Haltwhistle, Hadrian’s Wall (Image: Markus Keller/Westend61/Cover Images)
Rangers have urged Hadrian’s Wall visitors not to leave their dog poo bags but to take them home instead, as shameless tourists have been wedging them in the wall’s cracks. It took 15,000 soldiers six years to build and the UNESCO World Heritage site in northern England is possibly the best-known Roman structure still visible in Britain.
Yet rangers have bemoaned dog walkers abusing it, by using holes in the wall to hide their plastic dog poo bags full of canine excrement.
Northumberland National Park’s head ranger Margaret Anderson said: « It’s a real sense of frustration, we have this amazing structure here which so many people want to come and enjoy.
Rage at landmark’s dog poo abuse (Image: Northumberland National Park Authority)
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« For somebody to think it’s acceptable to wedge poo bags into a UNESCO World Heritage site, well actually it makes you quite sad. »
There are only 35 UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the UK and its territories including Hadrian’s Wall, Stonehenge and the Lake District.
Hadrian’s Wall was so named as the defensive fortification began in AD 122 in the reign of the Roman Emperor Hadrian.
The 73-mile northern England structure runs from Wallsend on the River Tyne in Newcastle in the east, to Bowness-on-Solway in Cumbria in the west and once boasted large ditches in front and behind, soldiers garrisoned in large forts, smaller milecastles, and intervening turrets – with gates posing also as customs posts.
Anderson accepts there are few, if any, bins along the famous central section of the wall, not even in the car park at Steel Rigg, the gateway to its most visited stretch.
But explaining why she added: « The last thing we want are more and more structures along here.
« And let’s face it, it’s really not hard to carry your poo bag, you can get little pouches to put it in, pop it in your pocket or your backpack until you get somewhere where you can dispose of it. »
One dog walker Taylor Hughes, of Wrexham, north Wales, agreed with Anderson that it is no great hardship to carry your pet’s dirt in a bag as you walk – branding those who don’t « just lazy ».
She said: « Nobody likes picking up dog mess, but as a dog owner, it’s just what you do ».
Another dog poo bag is simply dumped at Hadrian’s Wall (Image: Northumberland National Park Authority)
Meanwhile Emma Harrison from Durham, walking with dachshund Bobby, called the sight of dog poo bags wedged in Hadrian’s Wall « absolutely horrific ».
She went on: « There’s no reason why people can’t put it into a bag and take it home with them. »
« I’ll be picking up after little Bobby, promise, » she laughs.
But dog poo bags are not the only indignity the famous defensive frontier has to endure. People climb on it to get selfies, lift their children onto it, or eat picnics on its broad flanks.
But for Tony Gates, the outgoing CEO of the Northumberland National Park Authority, the dog poo issue is the one he « can’t get my head around. »
« I mean you come to see this wonderful view, this amazing piece of history, would it look the same if every 50m or so there’s a poo bag hanging out of it? I don’t think so. »
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