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 Haydon Bridge it runs 320 km to Haydon Bridge; allow about 4 h 33 of riding. It goes by way of Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 0, Beaumont motte castle and section of Hadri and back through Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 0. The line favours views over speed.
A couple of kilometres west of Chollerford, the Military Road climbs onto open moorland, and at a place called Limestone Corner, the most northerly point of Hadrian's Wall, the Romans gave up. Their ditch in front of the Wall was supposed to be cut through solid rock here, and you can still see where they started: huge blocks of whinstone split by wedges and left lying in the ditch, with holes for the levers still visible, as if the workers had just walked away for lunch. Brown Moor, close by, is the site of one of several Roman temporary camps in this stretch, where soldiers camped while building the Wall or moving through the frontier zone, their outlines barely visible in the rough grass.
Read the complete Brown Moor Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Brown Moor Roman temporary camp is where the day begins. Next is Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 0.
Wall mile zero is where Hadrian's Wall began, or ended, depending on which way you are riding, and it is in the most unlikely setting you could imagine: Wallsend, on the north bank of the Tyne, among terraced streets and the cranes of what was once one of the great shipbuilding rivers of the world. The town's name says it all. Here stood Segedunum, the easternmost fort of the wall, and its foundations have been laid bare beside the road, with a viewing tower that lets you see the whole plan at once, barracks, headquarters and gates, like a diagram on the ground.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 0 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 0 comes up about 51 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 160 km into the recorded legs you reach Beaumont motte castle and section of Hadri. Next is back through Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 0.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 0 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 0, late in the day. Next is Brown Moor Roman temporary camp.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Brown Moor Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Brown Moor Roman temporary camp. That is the ride.
Brown Moor Roman temporary camp → Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 0 is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 0 → Beaumont motte castle and section of Hadri is 109 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Beaumont motte castle and section of Hadri → back through Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 0 is 109 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 0 → Brown Moor Roman temporary camp is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.