Why this ride
A 268 km round trip from Brampton - roughly 4 h 17 in the saddle. On the way it passes Blitterlees, The English Lake District and back through Blitterlees. Lakes are the scenery here.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Boothby Roman fort and The English Lake District
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 268 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 4 h 17
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
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.
Scenic road chapters
Blitterlees → The English Lake District
Slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did. Water arrives beside the road and stays for 64 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 71 km
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Boothby Roman fort
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.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Boothby Roman fort is where the day begins. Next is Blitterlees.
2. Blitterlees
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.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Blitterlees comes up about 61 km into the recorded legs. Next is The English Lake District.
3. The English Lake District
Wordsworth wandered lonely as a cloud round here, and anybody who has ridden the Lake District on a wet bank holiday will understand the appeal of being lonely. The English Lake District, listed by UNESCO in 2017 as a cultural landscape, is a compact knot of mountains, lakes and valleys in Cumbria, shaped by glaciers and then by centuries of sheep farming, slate quarrying and, from the late eighteenth century, by poets, painters and tourists who came looking for the sublime.
Read the complete The English Lake District write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 132 km into the recorded legs you reach The English Lake District. Next is back through Blitterlees.
4. back through Blitterlees
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Blitterlees write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Blitterlees, late in the day. Next is Boothby Roman fort.
5. Boothby Roman fort
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Boothby Roman fort write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Back at Boothby Roman fort. That is the ride.
Leg by leg
Boothby Roman fort to Blitterlees
Boothby Roman fort → Blitterlees is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Blitterlees to The English Lake District
Blitterlees → The English Lake District is 71 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The English Lake District to back through Blitterlees
The English Lake District → back through Blitterlees is 73 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Blitterlees to Boothby Roman fort
back through Blitterlees → Boothby Roman fort is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.