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.
112 km from Haltwhistle to Haltwhistle, about 1 h 32 of riding. On the way it passes Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the trac, Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 5 and back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the trac. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
The Stanegate is the Roman road that came before the Wall, and Burnhead lies close to its line. Before Hadrian's engineers began their great work in AD 122, the frontier of Roman Britain ran along this road from Corbridge in the east to Carlisle in the west, guarded by forts at intervals of about a day's march, and the Wall was built a little to the north, along the crags. The camp at Burnhead, which belongs to the temporary camps that armies built on the march, is one of the faint earthworks in this country, a low square of bank and ditch in a field above the Haltwhistle Burn.
Read the complete Burnhead Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Burnhead Roman temporary camp is where the day begins. Next is Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the trac.
Just north of Hexham, the A road climbs out of the Tyne valley and meets the Roman frontier on a high, windy shoulder of Northumberland. Here, near Acomb, Wall and the crossing of the North Tyne at Chollerford, the line of Hadrian's Wall and its vallum runs across open farmland, sometimes visible as a low bank, sometimes followed by the road itself. Like every stretch of the frontier, it belongs to the UNESCO Frontiers of the Roman Empire, and this middle section is where the wall starts to feel serious, heading west into the wild central crags.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the trac write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the trac comes up about 30 km into the recorded legs. Next is Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 5.
Wall mile 5 is in Newcastle, which means that the Roman frontier is under a bus route. The Wall began at Wallsend and ran west, and the antiquarians who surveyed it numbered every Roman mile from there, so mile five falls in Benwell, a hillside district of terraces above the Tyne. Here the old line is now more or less the West Road, a main road into the city, and a short way off the road you can find real Roman stone. A tiny temple dedicated to a local British god called Antenociticus stands in a small garden between modern houses, with its three altars copied in place, and the remains of the Vallum, the broad ditch south of the Wall, crosses a causeway nearby. The fort of Condercum stood on the hill above, with a fine view east down the river.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 5 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 56 km into the recorded legs you reach Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 5. Next is back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the trac.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the trac write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the trac, late in the day. Next is Burnhead Roman temporary camp.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Burnhead Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Burnhead Roman temporary camp. That is the ride.
Burnhead Roman temporary camp → Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the trac is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the trac → Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 5 is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 5 → back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the trac is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the trac → Burnhead Roman temporary camp is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.