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.
183 km from Brampton to Brampton, about 2 h 51 of riding. It goes by way of Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp, Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the Marc, Roman fort and back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the Marc. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
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 is where the day begins. Next is Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp.
Look for a faint rectangle in the rough grass north of the Military Road, a few kilometres west of Chollerford, and you will have found Brown Dikes, one of a cluster of Roman temporary camps on the high ground above the North Tyne. Nothing stands here, no walls or gates, only low earthworks that the grazing sheep have softened over nearly two thousand years. But these camps are among the most evocative traces of the Roman army in Britain, because they mark where soldiers actually slept and worked while the frontier was being built and garrisoned.
Read the complete Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp comes up about 27 km into the recorded legs. Next is Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the Marc.
Most people meet Hadrian's Wall in the wild middle section around Housesteads, where it rides the crags of the Whin Sill. Out here at the eastern end, a few miles from Newcastle, it is a quieter, more domestic affair, and that is part of its charm. Heddon on the Wall, four kilometres away, keeps one of the longest surviving stretches of the wall's full broad foundation on this side of the country, a solid run of masonry beside the road, and the ground around it preserves the vallum, the great flat-bottomed ditch with banks on either side that the Romans dug just south of the wall to mark the military zone. Begun under the emperor Hadrian in AD 122, the whole frontier ran from the Tyne to the Solway, and it is part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage Site.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the Marc write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 55 km into the recorded legs you reach Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the Marc. Next is Roman fort.
At the mouth of the Tyne, on a rise above the river, stands a reconstructed Roman gateway that looks surprisingly new. It belongs to Arbeia, the Roman fort at South Shields, which supplied the soldiers along Hadrian's Wall and was built, strategically, to guard the entrance to the river. Ships unloaded grain and other goods here, and the stores were carried along the Wall's line, so this was the logistical heart of the frontier. Reconstructed buildings, including the gatehouse, a barrack and a commander's house, show how it looked, and the museum holds finds from the site.
Read the complete Roman fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Roman fort, about halfway. Next is back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the Marc.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the Marc write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the Marc sits at 140 km, about halfway. Next is back through Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp comes up about 155 km into the recorded legs. Next is 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.
Eight Roman inscriptions in the Roman quar closes the day.
Eight Roman inscriptions in the Roman quar → Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp → Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the Marc is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the Marc → Roman fort is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Roman fort → back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the Marc is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the Marc → back through Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp → Eight Roman inscriptions in the Roman quar is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.