Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the acce and The English Lake District

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the acce

   Across the water from here lies Eastriggs, a quiet Scottish village with a loud past. During the First World War a huge munitions factory stretched for miles along the Solway coast from Gretna to Annan, and the cordite paste that women workers mixed by hand earned the nickname devil's porridge. Thousands lived in purpose-built townships, and the whole operation was kept secret. A museum in Eastriggs now tells the story. The reason the label brings us to the English shore, though, is the Roman frontier, because Hadrian's Wall did not simply stop at Bowness-on-Solway. Beyond it a chain of milefortlets and towers carried on down the Cumbrian coast, watching the sea rather than the hills.

   Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the acce 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 the acce is where the day begins. Next is Sunny Rigg 1 Roman temporary camp.

2. 2. Sunny Rigg 1 Roman temporary camp

   Haltwhistle sits in the Tyne Gap, the low cleft where the South Tyne and the old Carlisle road squeeze between the high moors of the north Pennines and the Whin Sill ridge, and that gap is the reason the Romans cared about this ground. A temporary camp is exactly what it sounds like: a ditched and banked enclosure thrown up for a night or a few weeks by an army on the march or on building duty, then abandoned. Most were ploughed flat long ago and now show only as crop marks or faint corners in a pasture, so go in expecting a field, not a ruin. What you get is the story, and the story is good.

   Read the complete Sunny Rigg 1 Roman temporary camp write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Sunny Rigg 1 Roman temporary camp comes up about 54 km into the recorded legs. Next is The English Lake District.

3. 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 158 km into the recorded legs you reach The English Lake District. Next is back through Sunny Rigg 1 Roman temporary camp.

4. 4. back through Sunny Rigg 1 Roman temporary camp

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Sunny Rigg 1 Roman temporary camp write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Sunny Rigg 1 Roman temporary camp, late in the day. Next is Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the acce.

5. 5. Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the acce

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the acce 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 the acce. That is the ride.