CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
133 km from Carlisle to Carlisle, about 2 h 26 of riding. It goes by way of Nether Denton Roman fort, Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp and back through Nether Denton Roman fort. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 34 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
Beaumont is one of those small places where history is stacked in layers, like books on a shelf. The little church of St Mary stands on a grassy mound that was once a Norman motte, a castle earthwork, and that mound in turn sits right on the line of Hadrian's Wall as it heads west from Carlisle towards the Solway. The builders of the motte used the Roman wall as a convenient quarry and foundation, and the church builders after them did the same. You will find no tall Roman masonry here, only the line itself, traced in field boundaries and the slight rise of the ground, and an awareness that you are standing on the edge of an empire.
Read the complete Beaumont motte castle and section of Hadri write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beaumont motte castle and section of Hadri is where the day begins. Next is Nether Denton Roman fort.
Before Hadrian built his wall, the Romans controlled northern Britain with a line of forts along a road called the Stanegate, which ran from Corbridge to Carlisle, and Nether Denton was one of them. The fort, on a hill above the River Irthing near Gilsland, is now marked only by faint earthworks around the small church of Nether Denton, which stands on the site. It is a quiet place, with only rooks and sheep for company.
Read the complete Nether Denton Roman fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Nether Denton Roman fort comes up about 33 km into the recorded legs. Next is Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp.
Look for a faint rectangle in the rough grass north of the Military Road, a few kilometres west of Chollerford, and you will have found Brown Dikes, one of a cluster of Roman temporary camps on the high ground above the North Tyne. Nothing stands here, no walls or gates, only low earthworks that the grazing sheep have softened over nearly two thousand years. But these camps are among the most evocative traces of the Roman army in Britain, because they mark where soldiers actually slept and worked while the frontier was being built and garrisoned.
Read the complete Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 66 km into the recorded legs you reach Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp. Next is back through Nether Denton Roman fort.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Nether Denton Roman fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Nether Denton Roman fort, late in the day. Next is Beaumont motte castle and section of Hadri.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beaumont motte castle and section of Hadri write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Beaumont motte castle and section of Hadri. That is the ride.
Beaumont motte castle and section of Hadri → Nether Denton Roman fort is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Nether Denton Roman fort → Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp → back through Nether Denton Roman fort is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Nether Denton Roman fort → Beaumont motte castle and section of Hadri is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.