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.
From Silloth it runs 199 km to Silloth; allow about 3 h 11 of riding. The stops in between: Roman fort and watch tower, Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel, back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel and back through Roman fort and watch tower. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
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.
Read the complete Beckfoot Roman fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beckfoot Roman fort is where the day begins. Next is Roman fort and watch tower.
The Solway Firth is the border's wet edge, a wide estuary with some of the biggest tides in Britain, and the Romans built the western end of Hadrian's Wall right on its southern shore. Here, a few kilometres west of Carlisle, a fort and a watchtower stood in a low, open country of marsh and meadow, watching the crossing points across the water. The route passes Biglands House and the Stangate at Crosby Lodge, local names that mark an old road, and the landscape has the long, flat, windswept character that makes this corner of Cumbria feel remote even close to a city.
Read the complete Roman fort and watch tower write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Roman fort and watch tower comes up about 35 km into the recorded legs. Next is Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel.
East of Carlisle, near the market town of Brampton, Hadrian's Wall crosses a landscape of rolling farmland, hedges and woods along the valley of the River Irthing. Here the wall and its vallum, the great earthwork ditch that ran behind it on the southern side, cross fields where the stone has mostly been robbed for farm buildings, but the earthworks remain clearly visible as long ridges and hollows in the grass.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 69 km into the recorded legs you reach Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel. Next is Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel.
Here the Wall is at its most dramatic. In the central sector of Hadrian's Wall, north of Haydon Bridge and Hexham in Northumberland, the Roman frontier runs along the top of the Whin Sill, a long ridge of hard volcanic rock that breaks the moorland into a series of north-facing cliffs. The Romans built their wall right along the crest, using the natural defences, and the result is a line of stone that rises and falls with the crags like the spine of a great animal. Behind it, to the south, runs the vallum, a broad earthwork ditch with mounds on either side that marked the military zone, still clearly visible across the fields.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel, about halfway. Next is back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel sits at 138 km, about halfway. Next is back through Roman fort and watch tower.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Roman fort and watch tower write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Roman fort and watch tower comes up about 162 km into the recorded legs. Next is Beckfoot Roman fort.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beckfoot Roman fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beckfoot Roman fort closes the day.
Beckfoot Roman fort → Roman fort and watch tower is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Roman fort and watch tower → Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel → Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel → back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel → back through Roman fort and watch tower is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Roman fort and watch tower → Beckfoot Roman fort is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.