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 120 km round trip from Greenhead - roughly 1 h 37 in the saddle. On the way it passes Grindon School Roman temporary camp, Haltonchesters Roman fort, Hadrian's Wall and vallum in wall mile 8 f and back through Haltonchesters Roman fort.
The Roman army on the march built a camp every night: a rectangle of ditch and rampart, with tents inside, defended by sentries. These temporary camps, often used only once or for a short campaign, left faint traces in the landscape, and many have been found from the air in the north of England. Crooks, near Haltwhistle and Greenhead, in the area where Northumberland meets Cumbria, is one of several temporary camps along the line of Hadrian's Wall, probably used by the soldiers who built the Wall in the second century.
Read the complete Crooks Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Crooks Roman temporary camp is where the day begins. Next is Grindon School Roman temporary camp.
Marching soldiers did not sleep in the open. Every night on campaign, a Roman army dug a ditch and threw up a rampart around its tents, and the faint outlines of these temporary camps are scattered across Northumberland, some dating from the conquest of the north, others from the building of the Wall. The camp near the old Grindon school, close to the Stanegate a little north of Haydon Bridge, is one of these. You will need a good map and a low sun to make out its banks.
Read the complete Grindon School Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Grindon School Roman temporary camp comes up about 19 km into the recorded legs. Next is Haltonchesters Roman fort.
Where Dere Street, the great Roman road north from York, met Hadrian's Wall, the Romans built a gateway, and a mile or so west of it they placed the fort of Haltonchesters, known to them as Onnum. Today the site is a grassy field on the edge of the Military Road above the Tyne valley, with little to see beyond the faint outline of ramparts. But the setting is the thing: rolling Northumberland farmland, stone walls, the Tyne below, and on a clear day views far to the north and south.
Read the complete Haltonchesters Roman fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 39 km into the recorded legs you reach Haltonchesters Roman fort. Next is Hadrian's Wall and vallum in wall mile 8 f.
Here, at the western edge of Newcastle, the Roman frontier starts to escape the city. Wall mile 8 lies around Newburn and Throckley, with Blaydon across the Tyne and the suburbs thinning into fields as you head west. The masonry itself has mostly vanished under roads, houses and farmland, but the line of the Wall and the great earthwork of the Vallum to its south can still be followed in hummocks, ditches and the occasional consolidated stretch of stone, most famously a little further west at Heddon-on-the-Wall, where a long run survives at nearly its full original width.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum in wall mile 8 f write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum in wall mile 8 f, about halfway. Next is back through Haltonchesters Roman fort.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Haltonchesters Roman fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Haltonchesters Roman fort sits at 99 km, about halfway. Next is back through Grindon School Roman temporary camp.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Grindon School Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Grindon School Roman temporary camp comes up about 101 km into the recorded legs. Next is Crooks Roman temporary camp.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Crooks Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Crooks Roman temporary camp closes the day.
Crooks Roman temporary camp → Grindon School Roman temporary camp is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Grindon School Roman temporary camp → Haltonchesters Roman fort is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Haltonchesters Roman fort → Hadrian's Wall and vallum in wall mile 8 f is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum in wall mile 8 f → back through Haltonchesters Roman fort is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Haltonchesters Roman fort → back through Grindon School Roman temporary camp is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Grindon School Roman temporary camp → Crooks Roman temporary camp is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.