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 Carlisle it runs 242 km to Carlisle; allow about 3 h 26 of riding. The stops in between: Chapel Rigg Roman temporary camp, Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Chesters, Hadrian's Wall and vallum in wall mile 10 and Durham Castle and Cathedral. The line favours views over speed.
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 37 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
Carlisle has been a border city for two thousand years, and the Romans were the first to make it one. On the eastern edge, around Tarraby, the line of Hadrian's Wall passes beneath modern housing, and for much of its length here there is nothing to see above ground except the occasional dip in a field or a bend in a lane that follows the old ditch. The great fort of Uxelodunum, now buried beneath Stanwix, was the largest on the whole wall, home to a thousand cavalrymen, which tells you how much weight the Romans put on this crossing of the river Eden.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall between Tarraby and Beech G write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall between Tarraby and Beech G is where the day begins. Next is Chapel Rigg Roman temporary camp.
West of Haltwhistle, the land rises gently to the watershed between the Tyne and the Irthing, a broad, windy saddle of rough pasture known as the Tyne Gap, where rivers flow east to the North Sea and west to the Irish Sea. Chapel Rigg Roman temporary camp is one of several marching camps here, where Roman soldiers on the move dug a rectangular ditch and rampart for a night or a season, the earthworks now barely visible as low ridges in the grass. It is part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage site.
Read the complete Chapel Rigg Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Chapel Rigg Roman temporary camp comes up about 29 km into the recorded legs. Next is Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Chesters.
The North Tyne comes down from the Kielder hills and the empty moorland of the border, and at Chollerford it passes beneath an old stone bridge on its way to meet the South Tyne near Hexham. Just west of the bridge, the Wall strides away uphill from Chesters fort, and this stretch, with the Wall and the vallum running together across farmland and woods, is part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage site.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Chesters write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 55 km into the recorded legs you reach Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Chesters. Next is Hadrian's Wall and vallum in wall mile 10.
Heddon-on-the-Wall is aptly named. Just west of Newcastle, on a ridge above the Tyne, the village sits right on the line of Hadrian's Wall, and at its eastern edge is the longest surviving stretch of the broad wall still visible in the east, a section of thick, solid masonry about a hundred metres long, complete with the foundations of a medieval kiln built into it. Wall mile 10 is the stretch around here, counting westward from Wallsend, and it is part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage site. South of the wall, the vallum, a huge ditch flanked by earth mounds, can still be traced across the fields.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum in wall mile 10 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum in wall mile 10, 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 10.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum in wall mile 10 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 10 comes up about 160 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Chesters.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Chesters write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 187 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Chesters. Next is back through Chapel Rigg Roman temporary camp.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chapel Rigg Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Chapel Rigg Roman temporary camp, late in the day. Next is Hadrian's Wall between Tarraby and Beech G.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall between Tarraby and Beech G 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 Tarraby and Beech G → Chapel Rigg Roman temporary camp is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Chapel Rigg Roman temporary camp → Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Chesters is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Chesters → Hadrian's Wall and vallum in wall mile 10 is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum in wall mile 10 → Durham Castle and Cathedral is 39 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 10 is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum in wall mile 10 → back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Chesters is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Chesters → back through Chapel Rigg Roman temporary camp is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Chapel Rigg Roman temporary camp → Hadrian's Wall between Tarraby and Beech G is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.