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 Brampton it runs 196 km to Brampton; allow about 3 h 06 of riding. On the way it passes Roman quarry inscription on Queen's Crags, Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the B630, Roman fort and back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the B630. The line favours views over speed.
Brampton is a small red-sandstone market town on the edge of the northern Pennines, and just outside it, on the line of the old Stanegate road, lay Boothby, one of the Roman forts that guarded the frontier before Hadrian's Wall was built. There is nothing much to see on the ground now, only a field and a slight rise, but the location is a good jumping-off point for some of the best riding and the best Wall sites in Cumbria.
Read the complete Boothby Roman fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Boothby Roman fort is where the day begins. Next is Roman quarry inscription on Queen's Crags.
The Wall needed millions of dressed stones, and the Romans quarried them close to where they were needed. On Queen's Crags, a ridge of sandstone north of the Wall near Housesteads, they left a calling card: an inscription cut into the rock face, one of several known Roman quarry inscriptions along the frontier, recording a soldier or unit at work. It is a small, weathered thing, hard to find without directions, but it is a direct link to the men who cut the stone for the Wall.
Read the complete Roman quarry inscription on Queen's Crags write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Roman quarry inscription on Queen's Crags comes up about 31 km into the recorded legs. Next is Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the B630.
Out at the eastern end of the frontier, the Wall leaves the moors behind and runs through gentle farmland toward Newcastle, and most of what survives here is not stone but earth: the vallum, a broad ditch flanked by banks that the Romans dug just south of the Wall along almost its entire length. Between the Tyne and the Military Road, near Heddon-on-the-Wall and Rudchester, the vallum can be traced in the fields as a long hollow, and the Wall itself lies largely under the road or as low courses in the grass. Its purpose is still debated, but most scholars see it as a boundary marking the military zone, controlling who could approach the Wall.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the B630 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 58 km into the recorded legs you reach Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the B630. Next is Roman fort.
At the mouth of the Tyne, on a rise above the river, stands a reconstructed Roman gateway that looks surprisingly new. It belongs to Arbeia, the Roman fort at South Shields, which supplied the soldiers along Hadrian's Wall and was built, strategically, to guard the entrance to the river. Ships unloaded grain and other goods here, and the stores were carried along the Wall's line, so this was the logistical heart of the frontier. Reconstructed buildings, including the gatehouse, a barrack and a commander's house, show how it looked, and the museum holds finds from the site.
Read the complete Roman fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Roman fort, about halfway. Next is back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the B630.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the B630 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the B630 sits at 149 km, about halfway. Next is back through Roman quarry inscription on Queen's Crags.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Roman quarry inscription on Queen's Crags write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Roman quarry inscription on Queen's Crags comes up about 166 km into the recorded legs. Next is Boothby Roman fort.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Boothby Roman fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Boothby Roman fort closes the day.
Boothby Roman fort → Roman quarry inscription on Queen's Crags is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Roman quarry inscription on Queen's Crags → Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the B630 is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the B630 → Roman fort is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Roman fort → back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the B630 is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the B630 → back through Roman quarry inscription on Queen's Crags is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Roman quarry inscription on Queen's Crags → Boothby Roman fort is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.