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.
A 242 km round trip from Carlisle - roughly 3 h 36 in the saddle. The stops in between: Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel, The Roman fort, Hadrian's Wall and vallum in wall mile 9 and Durham Castle and Cathedral. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 36 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
Where does the Wall go when it reaches a city? In Carlisle, it takes a quiet route under the pavement. The Roman fort of Luguvalium stood here, on the south bank of the River Eden, to guard a crossing, and the line of the frontier ran north of the town, through what is now the suburb of Stanwix. Along the road between Houghton Road and the river, you are following a stretch where the Wall once stood, though you would need a map and a good imagination to see it. A small plaque, a piece of ditch or a slightly raised bank is all that remains.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall between Houghton Road and T write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall between Houghton Road and T is where the day begins. Next is Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel.
Around Haltwhistle the wall country becomes the landscape everyone imagines: the Whin Sill, a long ridge of hard volcanic dolerite, rears up in a series of cliffs facing north, and the Romans used it as a ready-made rampart, running their stone wall along the very top. Between the crags and the road the vallum ditch runs across the fields as a broad, clear trench, and from any high point you can see the whole military system laid out: crag, wall, road and ditch side by side.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel comes up about 29 km into the recorded legs. Next is The Roman fort.
Down by the North Tyne, where the river runs fast over stones under a canopy of trees, a Roman cavalry regiment once kept its horses and its very comfortable bath house. Chesters, the fort the Romans called Cilurnum, sat astride Hadrian's Wall near the village of Walwick, guarding the bridge that carried the wall across the river. It is one of the best preserved forts along the wall, with the headquarters building, the commander's house and the bath house still standing to knee or shoulder height, and the remains of the bridge abutment visible on the far bank.
Read the complete The Roman fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 57 km into the recorded legs you reach The Roman fort. Next is Hadrian's Wall and vallum in wall mile 9.
Nine Roman miles west of the wall's starting point at Wallsend, the frontier is already climbing out of the Tyne valley, and here on the edge of Newburn and Heddon-on-the-Wall you can still find it in the fields. Emperor Hadrian ordered the wall in AD 122, a stone barrier across the narrowest part of northern Britain from the Tyne to the Solway, and behind it the army dug the Vallum, a broad ditch flanked by earth mounds that marked the military zone from the civilian south. On this stretch the Vallum is often easier to read than the wall itself, a long shallow trough running through the grass, especially when the evening light comes in low and picks out every bump.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum in wall mile 9 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum in wall mile 9, about halfway. 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.
Durham Castle and Cathedral sits at 140 km, about halfway. Next is back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum in wall mile 9.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum in wall mile 9 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 9 comes up about 156 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through The Roman fort.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Roman fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 184 km into the recorded legs you reach back through The Roman fort. Next is back through 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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel, late in the day. Next is Hadrian's Wall between Houghton Road and T.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall between Houghton Road and T write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 242 km.
Hadrian's Wall between Houghton Road and T → Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel → The Roman fort is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Roman fort → Hadrian's Wall and vallum in wall mile 9 is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum in wall mile 9 → Durham Castle and Cathedral is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Durham Castle and Cathedral → back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum in wall mile 9 is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum in wall mile 9 → back through The Roman fort is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Roman fort → back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel → Hadrian's Wall between Houghton Road and T is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.