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.
From Bardon Mill it runs 142 km to Bardon Mill; allow about 2 h 19 of riding. The stops in between: Hadrian's Wall and vallum and their associ, Moss Side 1 and 2 Roman temporary camps, Drumburgh Roman fort and Hadrian's Wall be and back through Moss Side 1 and 2 Roman temporary camps. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 27 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
This is the stretch of Hadrian's Wall that everyone pictures: the stone curtain running along the crest of the Whin Sill, a hard dolerite ridge that ends in sheer north-facing crags, with lakes like Crag Lough and Greenlee Lough glinting below. Housesteads fort is close by, clinging to the hillside with its barracks, granaries and famous communal latrines, and the Wall dips and climbs over each crag in a way that seems almost reckless as engineering. The Sycamore Gap tree, which stood in a dip in the ridge for generations, was felled in an act of vandalism in 2023, and the loss is still felt locally.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and associated features bet write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall and associated features bet is where the day begins. Next is Hadrian's Wall and vallum and their associ.
Gilsland is a village with a split personality. The boundary between Northumberland and Cumbria runs right through it, along the Poltross Burn, so the houses on one side are in one county and those on the other in another. Hadrian's Wall runs through it too, and the stretch of Wall, vallum and associated features around the village is part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage site. The Wall here crosses the narrow gorge of the burn and the railway line, with a milecastle right next to the old station.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum and their associ write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum and their associ comes up about 21 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 44 km into the recorded legs you reach Moss Side 1 and 2 Roman temporary camps. Next is 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.
Read the complete Drumburgh Roman fort and Hadrian's Wall be write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Drumburgh Roman fort and Hadrian's Wall be, about halfway. 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 sits at 101 km, about halfway. Next is back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum and their associ.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum and their associ write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum and their associ comes up about 123 km into the recorded legs. Next is Hadrian's Wall and associated features bet.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and associated features bet write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall and associated features bet closes the day.
Hadrian's Wall and associated features bet → Hadrian's Wall and vallum and their associ is 21 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum and their associ → Moss Side 1 and 2 Roman temporary camps is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Moss Side 1 and 2 Roman temporary camps → Drumburgh Roman fort and Hadrian's Wall be is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Drumburgh Roman fort and Hadrian's Wall be → back through Moss Side 1 and 2 Roman temporary camps is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Moss Side 1 and 2 Roman temporary camps → back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum and their associ is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum and their associ → Hadrian's Wall and associated features bet is 21 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.