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.
A 134 km round trip from Carlisle - roughly 2 h 16 in the saddle. It goes by way of The Roman bath house to the north east of, Sunny Rigg 1 Roman temporary camp, Written Rock of Gelt: Roman quarry inscrip and back through Sunny Rigg 1 Roman temporary camp.
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 24 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
When King Edward I died in 1307, he was camped on the Solway marshes, on his way north to deal with Robert the Bruce once more, and the spot is marked by a monument beside the road near Burgh by Sands. Long before him the Romans had built a fort here, called Aballava, on a low ridge above the tidal flats, with a garrison of troops from the Moorish provinces of North Africa. Today the little village is spread along a single road, and its church, St Michael's, is built partly of Roman stone and has a defensive tower, a reminder of the centuries of Border raiding that followed.
Read the complete Burgh by Sands Roman fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Burgh by Sands Roman fort is where the day begins. Next is The Roman bath house to the north east of.
Brampton is the kind of small Cumbrian market town that riders pass on the A69 without a second look, which is a pity, because the country just north and east of it is some of the richest Roman and medieval ground on the whole Wall. The site of the Roman bath house lies close to the town, near the remains of an early fort on the Stanegate, and like most bath houses it sat outside the fort walls, where its furnaces and the risk of fire could do less harm. Little or nothing stands above ground, so come for the setting rather than the stones.
Read the complete The Roman bath house to the north east of write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Roman bath house to the north east of comes up about 23 km into the recorded legs. Next is Sunny Rigg 1 Roman temporary camp.
Haltwhistle sits in the Tyne Gap, the low cleft where the South Tyne and the old Carlisle road squeeze between the high moors of the north Pennines and the Whin Sill ridge, and that gap is the reason the Romans cared about this ground. A temporary camp is exactly what it sounds like: a ditched and banked enclosure thrown up for a night or a few weeks by an army on the march or on building duty, then abandoned. Most were ploughed flat long ago and now show only as crop marks or faint corners in a pasture, so go in expecting a field, not a ruin. What you get is the story, and the story is good.
Read the complete Sunny Rigg 1 Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 45 km into the recorded legs you reach Sunny Rigg 1 Roman temporary camp. Next is Written Rock of Gelt: Roman quarry inscrip.
Beside the river Gelt, a small stream that runs through a wooded sandstone gorge east of Carlisle, a smooth face of rock bears an inscription cut by Roman soldiers some eighteen centuries ago. This is the Written Rock of Gelt. It marks the quarry where legionaries cut stone for the western part of Hadrian's Wall, and it records their work, with names and dates, in neat Latin letters that are still readable though weathered by the rain.
Read the complete Written Rock of Gelt: Roman quarry inscrip write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Written Rock of Gelt: Roman quarry inscrip, about halfway. Next is back through Sunny Rigg 1 Roman temporary camp.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sunny Rigg 1 Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Sunny Rigg 1 Roman temporary camp sits at 98 km, about halfway. Next is back through The Roman bath house to the north east of.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Roman bath house to the north east of write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Roman bath house to the north east of comes up about 110 km into the recorded legs. Next is Burgh by Sands Roman fort.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Burgh by Sands Roman fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Burgh by Sands Roman fort closes the day.
Burgh by Sands Roman fort → The Roman bath house to the north east of is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Roman bath house to the north east of → Sunny Rigg 1 Roman temporary camp is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sunny Rigg 1 Roman temporary camp → Written Rock of Gelt: Roman quarry inscrip is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Written Rock of Gelt: Roman quarry inscrip → back through Sunny Rigg 1 Roman temporary camp is 21 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Sunny Rigg 1 Roman temporary camp → back through The Roman bath house to the north east of is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Roman bath house to the north east of → Burgh by Sands Roman fort is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.