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 Newburn it runs 234 km to Newburn; allow about 3 h 38 of riding. The stops in between: Limestone Corner Roman temporary camp, Throp Roman fortlet, Hadrian's Wall and vallum in wall mile 66 and Bewcastle Roman fort. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 34 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
Heddon-on-the-Wall announces its pedigree in its name, and just east of the village, on the slope down towards Newcastle, you find the longest surviving stretch of the Wall in the eastern sector. It is a section of broad wall, built to the original specification of about ten Roman feet thick, before the builders further west were told to save time and stone by making it narrower. Standing beside it, with fields falling away towards the Tyne, you get a strong sense of the scale of the project: this curtain once ran unbroken for eighty Roman miles.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum from East Town H write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum from East Town H is where the day begins. Next is Limestone Corner Roman temporary camp.
Limestone Corner is the most northerly point on Hadrian's Wall, and it is famous for a job left unfinished. The Romans dug a defensive ditch in front of the Wall along most of its length, but here they hit a band of hard whinstone, and after cutting some of the huge blocks free and splitting others with wedges, they simply gave up. The blocks still lie where they were left, some with the holes for the wedges visible, nearly nineteen centuries later. Nearby, the earthworks of a Roman temporary camp, where troops on the move once pitched their tents behind a ditch and bank, are part of the same Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage site.
Read the complete Limestone Corner Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Limestone Corner Roman temporary camp comes up about 27 km into the recorded legs. Next is Throp Roman fortlet.
Throp is a farm name on the edge of Gilsland, in the narrow gap where the River Irthing slips between the northern Pennines and the moors that roll north towards the Scottish border. A small Roman fortlet stood here, close to the Stanegate, the road that ran along the valley before the Wall was built, and it is one of the many features that make up the Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage site. Not much remains to see, but the setting is classic Wall country.
Read the complete Throp Roman fortlet write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 54 km into the recorded legs you reach Throp Roman fortlet. Next is Hadrian's Wall and vallum in wall mile 66.
The western end of Hadrian's Wall runs right through Carlisle, and the stretch counted as wall mile 66 lies on the edge of the city, close to where the wall crossed the River Eden. The Roman town of Luguvalium grew up here, and the fort at Stanwix, across the river, housed a cavalry regiment and was the largest on the wall. Very little of the stone wall survives in the city, much of it having been robbed for buildings, but the line of the wall and vallum can be traced in places, and the Tullie House museum tells the story of Roman Carlisle with excellent displays.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum in wall mile 66 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum in wall mile 66, about halfway. Next is Bewcastle Roman fort.
Bewcastle is one of the loneliest places in Cumbria, and it has been for a very long time. Roman soldiers built an outpost fort here, about ten kilometres north of Hadrian's Wall, on a plateau whose shape the walls followed, giving it an unusual six-sided plan. It was a forward base for scouts watching the tribes beyond the frontier, and it was linked to the Wall at Birdoswald by a road. Later, a medieval castle was built into one corner of the old Roman defences, and its broken walls still stand above the beck.
Read the complete Bewcastle Roman fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Bewcastle Roman fort sits at 137 km, about halfway. Next is back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum in wall mile 66.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum in wall mile 66 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum in wall mile 66 comes up about 148 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Throp Roman fortlet.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Throp Roman fortlet write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 180 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Throp Roman fortlet. Next is back through Limestone Corner Roman temporary camp.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Limestone Corner Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Limestone Corner Roman temporary camp, late in the day. Next is Hadrian's Wall and vallum from East Town H.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum from East Town H write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 234 km.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum from East Town H → Limestone Corner Roman temporary camp is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Limestone Corner Roman temporary camp → Throp Roman fortlet is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Throp Roman fortlet → Hadrian's Wall and vallum in wall mile 66 is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum in wall mile 66 → Bewcastle Roman fort is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Bewcastle Roman fort → back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum in wall mile 66 is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum in wall mile 66 → back through Throp Roman fortlet is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Throp Roman fortlet → back through Limestone Corner Roman temporary camp is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Limestone Corner Roman temporary camp → Hadrian's Wall and vallum from East Town H is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.