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.
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Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
185 km from Carlisle to Carlisle, about 2 h 57 of riding. On the way it passes Pasture House turret 3a, Dubmill Point milefortlet 17, Parton Roman fort and back through Dubmill Point milefortlet 17. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
West of Carlisle the Eden slows and starts to meander, swinging in wide loops through flat meadows on its way to the Solway, and here at Grinsdale Hadrian's Wall ran along the high ground above the river. It is a gentle, almost secret stretch of countryside, only a few miles from the city but feeling much further. The tiny hamlet of Grinsdale has a church dedicated to St Kentigern, an early saint associated with this region, and a scatter of farms. The Wall has gone, robbed for building stone centuries ago, but the line it followed is clear in the field boundaries and the lie of the land.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall between Grinsdale and the f write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall between Grinsdale and the f is where the day begins. Next is Pasture House turret 3a.
A turret on Hadrian's Wall was a small stone tower, about the size of a garden shed, built into the wall itself so that two soldiers could shelter and watch the country. Two turrets stood between each pair of milecastles, spaced about a third of a Roman mile apart, which means a signal could be passed along the wall in minutes by lamp, horn or flag. Turret 3a, near Pasture House on the Solway plain, is one of those tiny posts, and it is a good place to imagine the monotony of the job: a cold, damp night, a wide flat horizon, and the wind in the grass.
Read the complete Pasture House turret 3a write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Pasture House turret 3a comes up about 24 km into the recorded legs. Next is Dubmill Point milefortlet 17.
Dubmill Point is where the Solway coast road comes closest to the sea, and on stormy days with a high tide, waves break right over the B5300 and the road can be closed. The point is a low spit of shingle and grass between Allonby and Silloth, and here the Romans built milefortlet 17, part of the coastal defences that extended the frontier of Hadrian's Wall down the Cumbrian shore. A small garrison watched the firth for boats crossing from the north, and signals passed from post to post along the coast. Little remains today, but the site is exposed and evocative, with the sea on one side and the flat fields of the coastal plain on the other.
Read the complete Dubmill Point milefortlet 17 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 61 km into the recorded legs you reach Dubmill Point milefortlet 17. Next is Parton Roman fort.
Hadrian's Wall stopped at Bowness-on-Solway, but the Roman frontier did not. Down the Cumbrian coast, the army built a chain of forts, milefortlets and towers to watch the sea and stop raiders slipping round the end of the Wall, and Parton, just north of Whitehaven, was one of them. The fort is known from excavations and records rather than standing remains, and the coastal defences as a whole are included in the UNESCO Frontiers of the Roman Empire. Standing on the cliffs above the sea, you can see why the Romans worried: across the water lie the Isle of Man and, on clear days, the hills of Scotland.
Read the complete Parton Roman fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Parton Roman fort, about halfway. Next is back through Dubmill Point milefortlet 17.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Dubmill Point milefortlet 17 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Dubmill Point milefortlet 17 sits at 113 km, about halfway. Next is back through Pasture House turret 3a.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Pasture House turret 3a write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Pasture House turret 3a comes up about 160 km into the recorded legs. Next is Hadrian's Wall between Grinsdale and the f.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall between Grinsdale and the f write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall between Grinsdale and the f closes the day.
Hadrian's Wall between Grinsdale and the f → Pasture House turret 3a is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pasture House turret 3a → Dubmill Point milefortlet 17 is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Dubmill Point milefortlet 17 → Parton Roman fort is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Parton Roman fort → back through Dubmill Point milefortlet 17 is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Dubmill Point milefortlet 17 → back through Pasture House turret 3a is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Pasture House turret 3a → Hadrian's Wall between Grinsdale and the f is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.