Most people think Hadrian's Wall ended at Bowness-on-Solway, and in stone it did. But the Romans did not trust the shallow Solway Firth to keep raiders out, so they carried their defences on down the Cumbrian coast for many miles: a chain of small milefortlets and watchtowers, with proper forts at intervals, all the way to Maryport and beyond. Beckfoot is one of those forts, on a low bluff a few kilometres south of Silloth, looking straight across the water to Scotland. Above ground there is almost nothing, just a field with faint outlines, but aerial photos and excavations have shown the fort, its civilian settlement and its cemetery, and coastal erosion keeps nibbling at the remains.
What you do get is the landscape the Romans watched. The Solway coast is wide and open, with dunes, salt marsh and shingle, and the sky seems twice its usual size. On a clear day the granite bulk of Criffel stands up across the firth, and the sunsets over the Irish Sea are spectacular. Natterjack toads breed in the pools along this coast, and the marshes fill with waders and wildfowl in winter. The air smells of salt and seaweed, and there is almost always a breeze.
The B5300 runs along the coast from Silloth to Maryport, and it is a lovely, easy road: flat, with long views over the shore, occasional gentle bends and very little traffic out of season. Wind is the main hazard, strong crosswinds off the sea can catch you on exposed stretches, along with sand drifting across the tarmac after storms. Inland, the lanes through the Cumbrian plain towards Aspatria and Wigton are quiet and hedged, good for unwinding after the busier roads of the Lakes.
Silloth is a Victorian port town with a broad green, a cobbled main street and the big Carr's flour mill by the docks, and it has shops, cafés and fuel. Maryport, further south, is larger and home to the Senhouse Roman Museum, which holds a remarkable collection of altars dug up next to the fort of Alauna, and it is the place to see what these coastal garrisons actually left behind. Between the two there are small caravan parks and beach car parks, but not much else, so time your stops around the towns.