Brampton is the sort of small Cumbrian market town that makes a good place to stop for lunch without any plan to do so. A few miles east of Carlisle, in the green valley of the River Irthing, it has an octagonal Moot Hall in the market place, built in the early nineteenth century, and a main street of sandstone houses and tea rooms. Market day brings stalls to the square, and the town has the unhurried feel of a place that knows where it is. The old church that gives this stop its name stands outside the town, on a rise by the river, with the grass mounds of a Roman fort beside it.
The fort here is one of a line that guarded the road known as the Stanegate, which ran from Corbridge to Carlisle before Hadrian's Wall was built, and which the Romans kept in use behind the Wall afterwards. Not much is visible except bumps in a field, but the position makes sense: a river crossing, a ridge, and the view along the valley to the Pennine hills in one direction and the Solway plain in the other. A medieval church was built nearby, with Roman stones in its walls, a common habit in border country where the Wall was a quarry for a thousand years.
The same ride goes on to Ravenglass on the west coast, where another Roman fort, with a remarkably tall surviving bath house, stands near the sea. The contrast between the eastern hills and the western shore is the pleasure of a longer day, and the road between them runs through some of the quietest country in England.
The roads around Brampton are good for easy riding, with rolling farmland, hedged lanes and wooded river valleys. The surface is generally fair, but the minor roads can be narrow, with mud from tractors, and the bends are often blind. Traffic is light except on the A69 and the town centre on market days. Brampton has fuel, a small supermarket and several cafés. Wetheral and Scotby are smaller villages with pubs. The best seasons are late spring, when the hedgerows are in flower, and early autumn.