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.
290 km from Haydon Bridge to Haydon Bridge, about 5 h 03 of riding. On the way it passes Nether Denton Roman fort, Beaumont motte castle and section of Hadri, Blitterlees and Parton Roman fort. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
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.
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 is where the day begins. 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.
Nether Denton Roman fort comes up about 30 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 65 km into the recorded legs you reach Beaumont motte castle and section of Hadri. Next is 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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Blitterlees, about halfway. Next is Parton Roman fort.
Hadrian's Wall stopped at Bowness-on-Solway, but the Roman frontier did not. Down the Cumbrian coast, the army built a chain of forts, milefortlets and towers to watch the sea and stop raiders slipping round the end of the Wall, and Parton, just north of Whitehaven, was one of them. The fort is known from excavations and records rather than standing remains, and the coastal defences as a whole are included in the UNESCO Frontiers of the Roman Empire. Standing on the cliffs above the sea, you can see why the Romans worried: across the water lie the Isle of Man and, on clear days, the hills of Scotland.
Read the complete Parton Roman fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Parton Roman fort sits at 148 km, about halfway. Next is back through 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.
back through Blitterlees comes up about 189 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 223 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Beaumont motte castle and section of Hadri. 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.
back through Nether Denton Roman fort, late in the day. Next is 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.
The route ends here after 290 km.
Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp → Nether Denton Roman fort is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Nether Denton Roman fort → Beaumont motte castle and section of Hadri is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beaumont motte castle and section of Hadri → Blitterlees is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Blitterlees → Parton Roman fort is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Parton Roman fort → back through Blitterlees is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Blitterlees → 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 → back through Nether Denton Roman fort is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Nether Denton Roman fort → Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.