Hadrian's Wall gets the fame, but the Romans kept watching long after it ended at Bowness. The coast of Cumberland, from the Solway to St Bees, was fitted with a line of forts, fortlets and watchtowers, each numbered in sequence, and Tower 22a is one of them. It stands on the cliff above Maryport, in a place that the golf course has swallowed, and what you will find is a modest earthwork or a marker rather than a standing tower. The Romans built Alauna, a fort at Maryport, on the high ground above the harbour, and the finds from it, a collection of seventeen carved altars buried in a pit, are displayed in the Senhouse Roman Museum in a former naval battery overlooking the sea.
Maryport itself is a pleasant surprise. It was planned in the eighteenth century as a coal port by the Senhouse family, and named for the wife of the landowner, and its Georgian streets run down to a harbour that once sent coal to Ireland. Thomas Ismay, who founded the White Star Line, the company of the Titanic, was born here in 1837. The harbour is quiet now, with yachts and a small maritime museum, and the fish and chips are good.
The coast road is the highlight for a rider. The B5300 runs along the shore between Maryport and Silloth, flat, open and very scenic, and the A596 and A66 lead inland toward Cockermouth and the Lakes. The view across the Solway to Scotland is wide and the wind is steady. In summer the road gets busy on bright weekends, but in spring and autumn it can be almost empty. The light, especially at sunset, is marvellous.
Maryport has nearly ten thousand people and has fuel, supermarkets and a few cafes, and Dearham and Flimby are smaller. The ride to Cockermouth, the birthplace of William Wordsworth, takes under half an hour, and the town's high street is a good place for lunch. Walk along the harbour and look at the museum before going on, since the light in the evening is soft and the sea is calm.