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 Haltwhistle it runs 62 km to Haltwhistle; allow about 1 h 09 of riding. It goes by way of Eight Roman inscriptions in the Roman quar, Watchclose Roman temporary camp and back through Eight Roman inscriptions in the Roman quar. 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 Eight Roman inscriptions in the Roman quar.
Building Hadrian's Wall took an enormous amount of stone, and the Romans quarried it wherever they could find good sandstone near the line. In the woods and crags around Banks and Lanercost, east of Brampton, several of these quarries survive, and on the rock faces the soldiers who worked them left their marks: names, unit symbols and short inscriptions carved into the stone nearly two thousand years ago. Coombe Crag, near the Wall here, is one of the best known, with names scratched by men who were probably bored, tired and far from home. Finding them takes a bit of searching and some imagination, as the letters are worn and lichen-covered, but there is something deeply human about them.
Read the complete Eight Roman inscriptions in the Roman quar write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Eight Roman inscriptions in the Roman quar comes up about 16 km into the recorded legs. Next is Watchclose Roman temporary camp.
East of Carlisle, between the villages of Brampton and Wetheral, the countryside rolls gently towards the Pennines, with green fields, hedges and patches of woodland. Somewhere in these fields lie the faint traces of Watchclose, a Roman temporary camp, one of many marching camps built by soldiers on campaign or during the construction of Hadrian's Wall. These camps were enclosed by a ditch and bank and used for a night or a season, and today they are often visible only from the air or as slight undulations in the grass. Watchclose is part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage site.
Read the complete Watchclose Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 32 km into the recorded legs you reach Watchclose Roman temporary camp. Next is back through Eight Roman inscriptions in the Roman quar.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Eight Roman inscriptions in the Roman quar write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Eight Roman inscriptions in the Roman quar, 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 → Eight Roman inscriptions in the Roman quar is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Eight Roman inscriptions in the Roman quar → Watchclose Roman temporary camp is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchclose Roman temporary camp → back through Eight Roman inscriptions in the Roman quar is 14 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Eight Roman inscriptions in the Roman quar → Burnhead Roman temporary camp is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.