Why this ride
270 km from Brampton to Brampton, about 4 h 09 of riding. It goes by way of Palisade ditches, The English Lake District and back through Palisade ditches. It strings together lakeside roads.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Banks Gr and The English Lake District
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 270 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 4 h 09
- 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.
Scenic road chapters
Palisade ditches → The English Lake District
Slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did. Water arrives beside the road and stays for 65 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 72 km
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Banks Gr
North-east of Brampton, the Wall climbs out of the Irthing valley and runs along a ridge past the hamlet of Banks, and here you can see something many visitors miss: not only the Wall itself, but the vallum, the great earthwork ditch with banks on either side that the Romans dug just south of it. The vallum marked a military zone, a controlled strip where civilians could not wander freely, and seeing its long straight line beside the stone curtain makes the frontier feel less like a wall and more like a whole system of control.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Banks Gr write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Banks Gr is where the day begins. Next is Palisade ditches.
2. Palisade ditches
Hadrian's Wall did not simply stop at the edge of the Solway. Beyond its western end at Bowness, the Romans continued the frontier down the Cumbrian coast with a chain of milefortlets and towers, and in places with ditches and palisades, to watch over the shoreline and guard against raids across the firth from what is now south west Scotland. The palisade ditches near Silloth are part of that coastal system, faint traces in the flat land behind the dunes, and they are a reminder that the Roman frontier was a complex network that stretched far beyond the famous stone wall.
Read the complete Palisade ditches write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Palisade ditches comes up about 62 km into the recorded legs. Next is The English Lake District.
3. The English Lake District
Wordsworth wandered lonely as a cloud round here, and anybody who has ridden the Lake District on a wet bank holiday will understand the appeal of being lonely. The English Lake District, listed by UNESCO in 2017 as a cultural landscape, is a compact knot of mountains, lakes and valleys in Cumbria, shaped by glaciers and then by centuries of sheep farming, slate quarrying and, from the late eighteenth century, by poets, painters and tourists who came looking for the sublime.
Read the complete The English Lake District write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 134 km into the recorded legs you reach The English Lake District. Next is back through Palisade ditches.
4. back through Palisade ditches
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Palisade ditches write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Palisade ditches, late in the day. Next is Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Banks Gr.
5. Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Banks Gr
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Banks Gr write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Back at Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Banks Gr. That is the ride.
Leg by leg
Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Banks Gr to Palisade ditches
Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Banks Gr → Palisade ditches is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Palisade ditches to The English Lake District
Palisade ditches → The English Lake District is 72 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The English Lake District to back through Palisade ditches
The English Lake District → back through Palisade ditches is 74 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Palisade ditches to Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Banks Gr
back through Palisade ditches → Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Banks Gr is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.