Why this ride
A 55 km round trip from Haydon Bridge - roughly 56 min in the saddle. It goes by way of Lees Hall Roman camp, Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel and back through Lees Hall Roman camp. The line favours views over speed.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Coesike West Roman temporary camps 1 and 2 and Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 55 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 56 min
- 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.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Coesike West Roman temporary camps 1 and 2
Roman marching camps look like nothing, and yet they tell you almost everything about how the legions worked. At the end of each day's march, the soldiers dug a ditch, threw up a rampart of turf and put up their leather tents inside, in a regular plan. The camps at Coesike West, two of them side by side, were built on the moorland north of Hadrian's Wall, and they probably date from the period of campaigns in the north, before or around the time the frontier was fixed. They are only low banks and ditches now, but from the air or in low light the outline is clear.
Read the complete Coesike West Roman temporary camps 1 and 2 write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Coesike West Roman temporary camps 1 and 2 is where the day begins. Next is Lees Hall Roman camp.
2. Lees Hall Roman camp
Haltwhistle likes to call itself the centre of Britain, a claim measured with some creativity, and it is certainly the middle of Hadrian's Wall country, a small market town on the South Tyne where the river valley narrows between the Pennines and the Wall crags. Lees Hall Roman camp is one of the temporary camps the army threw up while building the Wall or on campaign, a rectangle of bank and ditch now softened by grass. These marching camps were quick, practical affairs, ploughed flat in many places, and what survives is mostly a faint earthwork seen best in low evening light.
Read the complete Lees Hall Roman camp write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Lees Hall Roman camp comes up about 13 km into the recorded legs. Next is Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel.
3. Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel
East of Carlisle, near the market town of Brampton, Hadrian's Wall crosses a landscape of rolling farmland, hedges and woods along the valley of the River Irthing. Here the wall and its vallum, the great earthwork ditch that ran behind it on the southern side, cross fields where the stone has mostly been robbed for farm buildings, but the earthworks remain clearly visible as long ridges and hollows in the grass.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 27 km into the recorded legs you reach Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel. Next is back through Lees Hall Roman camp.
4. back through Lees Hall Roman camp
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Lees Hall Roman camp write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Lees Hall Roman camp, late in the day. Next is Coesike West Roman temporary camps 1 and 2.
5. Coesike West Roman temporary camps 1 and 2
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Coesike West Roman temporary camps 1 and 2 write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Back at Coesike West Roman temporary camps 1 and 2. That is the ride.
Leg by leg
Coesike West Roman temporary camps 1 and 2 to Lees Hall Roman camp
Coesike West Roman temporary camps 1 and 2 → Lees Hall Roman camp is 13 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Lees Hall Roman camp to Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel
Lees Hall Roman camp → Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel is 14 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel to back through Lees Hall Roman camp
Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel → back through Lees Hall Roman camp is 14 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Lees Hall Roman camp to Coesike West Roman temporary camps 1 and 2
back through Lees Hall Roman camp → Coesike West Roman temporary camps 1 and 2 is 13 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.