Most people think Hadrian's Wall ends at Bowness-on-Solway, where the stone curtain reached the sea. It did, but the frontier did not. From there, the Romans continued their defences down the Cumbrian coast for many miles, with a chain of milefortlets and towers watching the Solway Firth for raiders crossing from what is now Scotland. Tower 12b stood near Silloth, on ground now occupied by the town's golf course. Nothing much is visible, but the location makes sense as soon as you stand on the shore: the firth is wide and shallow, and across the water rises the hill of Criffel in Galloway.
Silloth itself is a Victorian creation, built as a port and seaside resort when the railway arrived from Carlisle in the 1850s. It has a broad, grassy seafront, the Green, wide cobbled streets laid out on a grid, and a quiet, slightly faded charm. The docks still handle some cargo, including flour for a mill in the town. The sunsets over the Solway are famous, and on summer evenings the Green fills with people watching the sun sink behind the Scottish hills.
The Solway coast is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and its salt marshes, mudflats and dunes are rich in wildlife. In winter, tens of thousands of geese, particularly barnacle geese from Svalbard, arrive to feed on the marshes, and the sound of them overhead is unforgettable. Natterjack toads breed in the dunes, and wading birds work the tideline.
The B5300 coast road runs south from Silloth to Allonby and Maryport, flat and open along the shore, with the sea on one side and fields on the other. It is not a road for curves, but it is lovely in good weather, with the Lake District fells rising on the eastern horizon. Inland, the roads through the villages towards Wigton and Abbeytown are narrow lanes between hedges, where tractors and livestock are common. The wind off the firth can be relentless.
Silloth has shops, cafés and fish and chips; Wigton and Maryport are the nearest larger towns if you need more. Have an ice cream on the Green and watch the tide, which comes in fast across the flats.