Why this ride
A 128 km round trip from Brampton - roughly 1 h 58 in the saddle. The stops in between: Sunny Rigg 3 Roman temporary camp, Coesike West Roman temporary camps 1 and 2, Lees Hall Roman camp and Coesike East Roman temporary camp.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel and Coesike East Roman temporary camp
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 128 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 1 h 58
- 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.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel
East of Carlisle, near the market town of Brampton, Hadrian's Wall crosses a landscape of rolling farmland, hedges and woods along the valley of the River Irthing. Here the wall and its vallum, the great earthwork ditch that ran behind it on the southern side, cross fields where the stone has mostly been robbed for farm buildings, but the earthworks remain clearly visible as long ridges and hollows in the grass.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel 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 fiel is where the day begins. Next is Sunny Rigg 3 Roman temporary camp.
2. Sunny Rigg 3 Roman temporary camp
Sunny Rigg is a name that sounds like a farm, and that is more or less what it is, a stretch of rough pasture on the high ground just north of Haltwhistle, in Northumberland, where archaeologists have found the faint outline of a Roman temporary camp. These camps were built by marching armies at the end of each day's journey, with a ditch and a rampart thrown up around the tents to protect them overnight, and they were abandoned the next morning. Most survive only as shallow earthworks or crop marks seen from the air, which is why the places are so evocative: they record a single night of an army's life on the march, two thousand years ago.
Read the complete Sunny Rigg 3 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 3 Roman temporary camp comes up about 16 km into the recorded legs. Next is Coesike West Roman temporary camps 1 and 2.
3. Coesike West Roman temporary camps 1 and 2
Roman marching camps look like nothing, and yet they tell you almost everything about how the legions worked. At the end of each day's march, the soldiers dug a ditch, threw up a rampart of turf and put up their leather tents inside, in a regular plan. The camps at Coesike West, two of them side by side, were built on the moorland north of Hadrian's Wall, and they probably date from the period of campaigns in the north, before or around the time the frontier was fixed. They are only low banks and ditches now, but from the air or in low light the outline is clear.
Read the complete Coesike West Roman temporary camps 1 and 2 write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 33 km into the recorded legs you reach Coesike West Roman temporary camps 1 and 2. Next is Lees Hall Roman camp.
4. Lees Hall Roman camp
Haltwhistle likes to call itself the centre of Britain, a claim measured with some creativity, and it is certainly the middle of Hadrian's Wall country, a small market town on the South Tyne where the river valley narrows between the Pennines and the Wall crags. Lees Hall Roman camp is one of the temporary camps the army threw up while building the Wall or on campaign, a rectangle of bank and ditch now softened by grass. These marching camps were quick, practical affairs, ploughed flat in many places, and what survives is mostly a faint earthwork seen best in low evening light.
Read the complete Lees Hall Roman camp write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Lees Hall Roman camp, about halfway. Next is Coesike East Roman temporary camp.
5. Coesike East Roman temporary camp
The Romans were a marching people, and every night on campaign they dug in. Coesike East is one of those night camps, a temporary enclosure of banks and ditches thrown up by a column on the move, probably around the time the frontier was being organised, long before anyone thought of building a wall. Nothing much stands above ground now. What survives is a faint rectangle in rough pasture, visible mostly to people who already know what they are looking for, or to aerial photographs in low winter sun.
Read the complete Coesike East Roman temporary camp write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Coesike East Roman temporary camp sits at 66 km, about halfway. Next is back through Lees Hall Roman camp.
6. back through Lees Hall Roman camp
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Lees Hall Roman camp write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Lees Hall Roman camp comes up about 83 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Coesike West Roman temporary camps 1 and 2.
7. back through Coesike West Roman temporary camps 1 and 2
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Coesike West Roman temporary camps 1 and 2 write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 99 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Coesike West Roman temporary camps 1 and 2. Next is back through Sunny Rigg 3 Roman temporary camp.
8. back through Sunny Rigg 3 Roman temporary camp
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sunny Rigg 3 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 3 Roman temporary camp, late in the day. Next is Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel.
9. Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
The route ends here after 128 km.
Leg by leg
Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel to Sunny Rigg 3 Roman temporary camp
Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel → Sunny Rigg 3 Roman temporary camp is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sunny Rigg 3 Roman temporary camp to Coesike West Roman temporary camps 1 and 2
Sunny Rigg 3 Roman temporary camp → Coesike West Roman temporary camps 1 and 2 is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Coesike West Roman temporary camps 1 and 2 to Lees Hall Roman camp
Coesike West Roman temporary camps 1 and 2 → Lees Hall Roman camp is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Lees Hall Roman camp to Coesike East Roman temporary camp
Lees Hall Roman camp → Coesike East Roman temporary camp is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Coesike East Roman temporary camp to back through Lees Hall Roman camp
Coesike East Roman temporary camp → back through Lees Hall Roman camp is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Lees Hall Roman camp to back through Coesike West Roman temporary camps 1 and 2
back through Lees Hall Roman camp → back through Coesike West Roman temporary camps 1 and 2 is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Coesike West Roman temporary camps 1 and 2 to back through Sunny Rigg 3 Roman temporary camp
back through Coesike West Roman temporary camps 1 and 2 → back through Sunny Rigg 3 Roman temporary camp is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Sunny Rigg 3 Roman temporary camp to Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel
back through Sunny Rigg 3 Roman temporary camp → Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.