CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
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Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
259 km from Silloth to Silloth, about 4 h 31 of riding. The stops in between: Beaumont motte castle and section of Hadri, Nether Denton Roman fort, Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp and Eight Roman inscriptions in the Roman quar. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
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.
Silloth sits on a flat spit of land on the Solway Firth, and from the shore you look across the water to the hills of Dumfriesshire, blue in clear weather and smudged away in rain. This was once a Roman frontier too. The line of Hadrian's Wall did not stop at the western end of the stone wall but continued down the Cumbrian coast as a chain of milefortlets and towers, small posts built to watch for raiders crossing by sea or by the tidal flats, and some of their sites lie on this shore. Blitterlees is a marsh and farm on the coast close to Silloth, and traces of those posts are found in the area, mostly as faint bumps and records rather than visible walls.
Read the complete Blitterlees write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Blitterlees is where the day begins. Next is Beaumont motte castle and section of Hadri.
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 comes up 34 km in. 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.
68 km in you reach Nether Denton Roman fort. 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.
Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp, about halfway. Next is Eight Roman inscriptions in the Roman quar.
Building Hadrian's Wall took an enormous amount of stone, and the Romans quarried it wherever they could find good sandstone near the line. In the woods and crags around Banks and Lanercost, east of Brampton, several of these quarries survive, and on the rock faces the soldiers who worked them left their marks: names, unit symbols and short inscriptions carved into the stone nearly two thousand years ago. Coombe Crag, near the Wall here, is one of the best known, with names scratched by men who were probably bored, tired and far from home. Finding them takes a bit of searching and some imagination, as the letters are worn and lichen-covered, but there is something deeply human about them.
Read the complete Eight Roman inscriptions in the Roman quar write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Eight Roman inscriptions in the Roman quar sits at 136 km, about halfway. Next is back through Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp comes up 170 km in. 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.
204 km in you reach back through Nether Denton Roman fort. Next is back through 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 through Beaumont motte castle and section of Hadri, late in the day. Next is Blitterlees.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Blitterlees write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 259 km.
Blitterlees → Beaumont motte castle and section of Hadri is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beaumont motte castle and section of Hadri → Nether Denton Roman fort is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Nether Denton Roman fort → Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp → Eight Roman inscriptions in the Roman quar is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Eight Roman inscriptions in the Roman quar → back through Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp → back through Nether Denton Roman fort is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Nether Denton Roman fort → back through Beaumont motte castle and section of Hadri is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Beaumont motte castle and section of Hadri → Blitterlees is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.