Chesters Pike Roman temporary camp and Parton Roman fort
Plan this ride
Recorded distance
232 km
Riding-time estimate
3 h 43
Journey
Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
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 232 km to Haltwhistle; allow about 3 h 43 of riding. It goes by way of Drumburgh Roman fort and Hadrian's Wall be, Parton Roman fort and back through Drumburgh Roman fort and Hadrian's Wall be. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Scenic road chapters
Chesters Pike Roman temporary camp → Drumburgh Roman fort and Hadrian'
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 61 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
Chapter facts
Length
56 km
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Chesters Pike Roman temporary camp
The country around Haltwhistle is where Hadrian's Wall is at its most dramatic. The Romans built it along the Whin Sill, a ridge of hard volcanic rock that rises in a long wall of crags above the farmland, and the ruins of milecastles, turrets and forts run along the top, making a line that climbs and dips like a stitched seam. Haltwhistle claims to be the centre of Britain, which no one can prove, and the town has a quiet, grey-stone high street. A Roman temporary camp, like the one at Chesters Pike, was a marching camp, where an army dug a ditch and raised a bank around a night's lodging, and left almost nothing behind. Often the only trace is a faint rectangle in the grass.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Chesters Pike Roman temporary camp is where the day begins. Next is Drumburgh Roman fort and Hadrian's Wall be.
2. Drumburgh Roman fort and Hadrian's Wall be
The small Roman fort at Drumburgh sat on a low rise above the Solway marshes, guarding a stretch of Hadrian's Wall where the frontier ran along the edge of the firth towards its western end at Bowness. Nothing much survives of the fort itself, but its stones did not go far. Drumburgh Castle, a fortified farmhouse built in the sixteenth century by the Dacre family, is clearly made from reused Roman masonry, and you can still pick out dressed blocks and even the odd carved fragment set into its walls.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Drumburgh Roman fort and Hadrian's Wall be comes up about 56 km into the recorded legs. Next is Parton Roman fort.
3. 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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Back at Chesters Pike Roman temporary camp. That is the ride.
Leg by leg
Chesters Pike Roman temporary camp to Drumburgh Roman fort and Hadrian's Wall be
Chesters Pike Roman temporary camp → Drumburgh Roman fort and Hadrian's Wall be is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Drumburgh Roman fort and Hadrian's Wall be to Parton Roman fort
Drumburgh Roman fort and Hadrian's Wall be → Parton Roman fort is 60 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Parton Roman fort to back through Drumburgh Roman fort and Hadrian's Wall be
Parton Roman fort → back through Drumburgh Roman fort and Hadrian's Wall be is 60 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Drumburgh Roman fort and Hadrian's Wall be to Chesters Pike Roman temporary camp
back through Drumburgh Roman fort and Hadrian's Wall be → Chesters Pike Roman temporary camp is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.