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.
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Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
From Haltwhistle it runs 331 km to Haltwhistle; allow about 5 h 05 of riding. The stops in between: Moss Side 1 and 2 Roman temporary camps, Campfield, Brownrigg North tower 21b and Ravenglass Roman fort bath-house. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Great Chesters, known to the Romans as Aesica, sits high on the Whin Sill ridge in Northumberland, the dark dolerite crag that Hadrian's Wall uses as its backbone for much of its central length. The fort is small, a modest rectangle of grassy banks and a few stone foundations in a field, and it is easy to drive past without noticing, which is part of its appeal. What you get is the setting: a wide skyline, the wall visible as a rough stone line running east and west, and the sort of silence that only comes from a long way from any town.
Read the complete Great Chesters Roman fort and Hadrian's Wa write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Great Chesters Roman fort and Hadrian's Wa is where the day begins. Next is Moss Side 1 and 2 Roman temporary camps.
Don't expect walls. The two Roman temporary camps at Moss Side are the sort of monument you mostly have to imagine: a pair of rectangles traced in the fields east of Carlisle, known from cropmarks and low earthworks rather than anything that rises above the grass. What you are looking at is a farmed slope of the lower Eden country, hedges and pasture, with Scotby and Wetheral a few kilometres off and the city of Carlisle seven kilometres to the west. The point of stopping is to stand where a Roman army once dug in for the night and to let the landscape do the explaining.
Read the complete Moss Side 1 and 2 Roman temporary camps write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Moss Side 1 and 2 Roman temporary camps comes up about 29 km into the recorded legs. Next is Campfield.
Out on the Solway coast west of Carlisle, the land flattens into salt marsh, peat bog and wide tidal sands, and the sky takes over. Campfield Marsh, near Bowness-on-Solway, is a nature reserve run by the RSPB, a mix of salt marsh, wet grassland and raised bog, and in winter it fills with tens of thousands of geese, barnacle and pink-footed, arriving from the Arctic, along with waders that feed on the mud at low tide. Across the firth, the town of Annan and the Scottish hills are visible on a clear day.
Read the complete Campfield write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 67 km into the recorded legs you reach Campfield. Next is Brownrigg North tower 21b.
Most people think Hadrian's Wall stops at the Solway, but the Roman frontier did not simply end at the water's edge. Beyond Bowness a chain of milefortlets and towers ran on down the Cumbrian coast, watching the sea and the hills of Scotland across the firth, and Brownrigg North, tower 21b in the archaeologists' numbering, was one of them. There is little to see on the ground now, often just a gentle swelling in a field, but stand here and look west and you understand why it was put there: the Solway opens out, and on a clear day the Galloway hills and the Isle of Man line the horizon.
Read the complete Brownrigg North tower 21b write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Brownrigg North tower 21b, about halfway. Next is Ravenglass Roman fort bath-house.
Walls Castle is the odd name for a Roman bath house, and the building still stands to a height of about four metres, one of the tallest Roman structures in northern England. It stood outside the fort of Glannoventa at Ravenglass, a harbour station at the meeting of three rivers, the Irt, the Mite and the Esk, and in the dry shelter of the dunes it has survived because its walls were thick and well built. You can walk around it on a short path from the village, and see niches and a doorway in the thick walls. The fort itself lies mostly under farmland and the railway.
Read the complete Ravenglass Roman fort bath-house write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ravenglass Roman fort bath-house sits at 163 km, about halfway. Next is back through Brownrigg North tower 21b.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Brownrigg North tower 21b write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Brownrigg North tower 21b comes up about 221 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Campfield.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Campfield write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 266 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Campfield. Next is back through Moss Side 1 and 2 Roman temporary camps.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Moss Side 1 and 2 Roman temporary camps write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Moss Side 1 and 2 Roman temporary camps, late in the day. Next is Great Chesters Roman fort and Hadrian's Wa.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Great Chesters Roman fort and Hadrian's Wa write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 331 km.
Great Chesters Roman fort and Hadrian's Wa → Moss Side 1 and 2 Roman temporary camps is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Moss Side 1 and 2 Roman temporary camps → Campfield is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Campfield → Brownrigg North tower 21b is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Brownrigg North tower 21b → Ravenglass Roman fort bath-house is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ravenglass Roman fort bath-house → back through Brownrigg North tower 21b is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Brownrigg North tower 21b → back through Campfield is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Campfield → back through Moss Side 1 and 2 Roman temporary camps is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Moss Side 1 and 2 Roman temporary camps → Great Chesters Roman fort and Hadrian's Wa is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.