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.
259 km from Prudhoe to Prudhoe, about 3 h 50 of riding. On the way it passes Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 2, Durham Castle and Cathedral, Seatsides 1 Roman temporary camp and secti and back through Durham Castle and Cathedral. It keeps close to the shore for long stretches.
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 31 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
Most people meet Hadrian's Wall in the wild middle section around Housesteads, where it rides the crags of the Whin Sill. Out here at the eastern end, a few miles from Newcastle, it is a quieter, more domestic affair, and that is part of its charm. Heddon on the Wall, four kilometres away, keeps one of the longest surviving stretches of the wall's full broad foundation on this side of the country, a solid run of masonry beside the road, and the ground around it preserves the vallum, the great flat-bottomed ditch with banks on either side that the Romans dug just south of the wall to mark the military zone. Begun under the emperor Hadrian in AD 122, the whole frontier ran from the Tyne to the Solway, and it is part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage Site.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the Marc write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the Marc is where the day begins. Next is Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 2.
Most people picture Hadrian's Wall striding across lonely Northumberland crags. Wall mile 2 is the other end of the story: an urban stretch in the east of Newcastle upon Tyne, where the wall ran from the fort at Wallsend, Segedunum, westwards along the north bank of the Tyne towards the bridge and fort at Pons Aelius, beneath today's city centre. Very little of the wall itself is visible here; terraced houses, roads and shipyards have long since swallowed it. But you are standing on the first miles of a frontier that once ran coast to coast for about eighty Roman miles.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 2 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 2 comes up about 22 km into the recorded legs. Next is Durham Castle and Cathedral.
The river Wear loops around a rocky peninsula in a tight horseshoe, and on top of it, rising above the trees, stand Durham Cathedral and Durham Castle, one of the most impressive views in Britain. The Normans built both in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries, soon after the Conquest, as a statement of power in the turbulent north. The cathedral is a masterpiece of Romanesque architecture, with massive columns carved with zigzags and spirals, and its stone rib vaults are among the earliest of their kind in Europe, pointing the way to Gothic architecture. Together, castle and cathedral were listed by UNESCO in 1986.
Read the complete Durham Castle and Cathedral write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 55 km into the recorded legs you reach Durham Castle and Cathedral. Next is Seatsides 1 Roman temporary camp and secti.
Haltwhistle likes to call itself the centre of Britain, a claim based on being halfway between the north and south coasts of the island, and while other towns dispute it, nobody disputes that it is the best base for exploring the central section of Hadrian's Wall. Just north of the town, on the rough ground below the crags, Seatsides 1 Roman temporary camp is one of several marching camps where Roman troops on the move dug defences for a night or longer, and the label includes a section of the vallum nearby. It is all part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage site.
Read the complete Seatsides 1 Roman temporary camp and secti write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Seatsides 1 Roman temporary camp and secti, about halfway. Next is back through Durham Castle and Cathedral.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Durham Castle and Cathedral write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Durham Castle and Cathedral sits at 179 km, about halfway. Next is back through Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 2.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 2 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 2 comes up about 237 km into the recorded legs. Next is Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the Marc.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the Marc write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the Marc closes the day.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the Marc → Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 2 is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 2 → Durham Castle and Cathedral is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Durham Castle and Cathedral → Seatsides 1 Roman temporary camp and secti is 75 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Seatsides 1 Roman temporary camp and secti → back through Durham Castle and Cathedral is 75 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Durham Castle and Cathedral → back through Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 2 is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 2 → Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the Marc is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.