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 144 km to Brampton; allow about 2 h 40 of riding. The stops in between: The vallum between Cockmount Hill and Wall, Red House Roman camp, Hadrian's Wall from Oatens Bank and back through Red House Roman camp. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Brampton is the sort of small Cumbrian market town that makes a good place to stop for lunch without any plan to do so. A few miles east of Carlisle, in the green valley of the River Irthing, it has an octagonal Moot Hall in the market place, built in the early nineteenth century, and a main street of sandstone houses and tea rooms. Market day brings stalls to the square, and the town has the unhurried feel of a place that knows where it is. The old church that gives this stop its name stands outside the town, on a rise by the river, with the grass mounds of a Roman fort beside it.
Read the complete Brampton Old Church Roman fort and the med write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Brampton Old Church Roman fort and the med is where the day begins. Next is The vallum between Cockmount Hill and Wall.
The vallum is the strangest part of Hadrian's Wall, and the one that nobody fully understands. It is a great flat-bottomed ditch, with a mound on each side, running along the south of the Wall for its whole length, and it was dug soon after the Wall was begun. The usual explanation is that it marked the back edge of the military zone, a boundary that civilians were not meant to cross except at controlled crossings, but nobody knows quite what it was for. Between Cockmount Hill and the village of Walltown, the vallum is clear and well preserved, a green trench in the field that you can follow with the eye for a long way.
Read the complete The vallum between Cockmount Hill and Wall write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The vallum between Cockmount Hill and Wall comes up about 24 km into the recorded legs. Next is Red House Roman camp.
A few kilometres west of Hexham the South and North Tyne have long since joined, and the valley widens into a level green floor of fields, hedges and small woods, with the Wall's ridge just visible to the north. The Red House Roman camp lies in this farmland, about five kilometres from Haydon Bridge, Acomb and Hexham, on the Roman road known as the Stanegate, which ran across the neck of Britain from Carlisle to Corbridge.
Read the complete Red House Roman camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 46 km into the recorded legs you reach Red House Roman camp. Next is Hadrian's Wall from Oatens Bank.
The road west from Heddon-on-the-Wall runs straight as a ruler, and there is a reason for that. The B6318, known locally as the Military Road, was built by General Wade's engineers after the Jacobite rising of 1745 so that troops could move quickly between Newcastle and Carlisle, and for long stretches they laid it right on top of Hadrian's Wall, using the Roman stones as foundation. At Oatens Bank, just beyond Heddon, you ride with the Wall beneath your tyres and the ditch and vallum still visible in the fields beside you, two thousand years of frontier engineering compressed into a few metres.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall from Oatens Bank write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall from Oatens Bank, about halfway. Next is back through Red House Roman camp.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Red House Roman camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Red House Roman camp sits at 102 km, about halfway. Next is back through The vallum between Cockmount Hill and Wall.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The vallum between Cockmount Hill and Wall write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The vallum between Cockmount Hill and Wall comes up about 120 km into the recorded legs. Next is Brampton Old Church Roman fort and the med.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Brampton Old Church Roman fort and the med write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Brampton Old Church Roman fort and the med closes the day.
Brampton Old Church Roman fort and the med → The vallum between Cockmount Hill and Wall is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The vallum between Cockmount Hill and Wall → Red House Roman camp is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Red House Roman camp → Hadrian's Wall from Oatens Bank is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall from Oatens Bank → back through Red House Roman camp is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Red House Roman camp → back through The vallum between Cockmount Hill and Wall is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The vallum between Cockmount Hill and Wall → Brampton Old Church Roman fort and the med is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.