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 232 km round trip from Newcastle upon Tyne - roughly 3 h 30 in the saddle. The stops in between: Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Sunnybra, Bean Burn 1 Roman temporary camp, Brampton Old Church Roman fort and the med and Vindolanda. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Newcastle is not where most people expect the Wall to end, but the Romans did not think of it as the end. The eastern terminus is at Wallsend, a few kilometres downriver, where the fort of Segedunum stood at the point where the Tyne widens, and from there the Wall ran west through what is now the centre of Newcastle. Wall mile 4 lies on that line, and Westgate Road, the main road west out of the city, follows it, so you may be riding along the line of the Wall without any sign. The Romans had a bridge over the Tyne at Newcastle, called Pons Aelius, the Bridge of Aelius, after Hadrian's family name, and the city grew up around the crossing.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 4 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 4 is where the day begins. Next is Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Sunnybra.
Just east of the point where the A68 crosses the line of Hadrian's Wall, at Portgate, the Romans had a gateway through the frontier for Dere Street, the great road running north from York into Scotland. Today the A68 follows much the same course, and the wall and its vallum run east and west across the fields here, sometimes visible as a bank or a ditch, sometimes buried under the Military Road. A little to the east, the fort of Halton Chesters, known to the Romans as Onnum, lies under the fields, and like the rest of the frontier, this stretch is part of the UNESCO Frontiers of the Roman Empire.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Sunnybra write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Sunnybra comes up about 29 km into the recorded legs. Next is Bean Burn 1 Roman temporary camp.
There is not much to see at Bean Burn, and that is rather the point. East of Haltwhistle, in the South Tyne valley a little below the line of Hadrian's Wall, archaeologists have traced the outline of a Roman temporary camp: a rectangle of low banks and ditches, often barely visible except from the air or in raking evening light. Camps like this were thrown up by soldiers on the march or during construction of the Wall, a night's or a season's shelter surrounded by a turf rampart and a ditch, with leather tents pitched inside in neat rows. Northumberland has an unusual concentration of them, and they tell a quieter story than the forts: of thousands of men moving across this landscape, digging in, moving on.
Read the complete Bean Burn 1 Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 61 km into the recorded legs you reach Bean Burn 1 Roman temporary camp. Next is Brampton Old Church Roman fort and the med.
Brampton is the sort of small Cumbrian market town that makes a good place to stop for lunch without any plan to do so. A few miles east of Carlisle, in the green valley of the River Irthing, it has an octagonal Moot Hall in the market place, built in the early nineteenth century, and a main street of sandstone houses and tea rooms. Market day brings stalls to the square, and the town has the unhurried feel of a place that knows where it is. The old church that gives this stop its name stands outside the town, on a rise by the river, with the grass mounds of a Roman fort beside it.
Read the complete Brampton Old Church Roman fort and the med write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Brampton Old Church Roman fort and the med, about halfway. Next is Vindolanda.
Vindolanda is the place where the Romans on the northern frontier start to sound like people. The fort stood on the Stanegate road, just south of the wall, and for several centuries it was rebuilt again and again, each new fort laid on top of the last. The damp, airless soil preserved wood and leather, and in 1973 archaeologists found thin wooden writing tablets covered in ink, letters written by soldiers, officers and their families in about AD 100. They are the oldest handwritten documents found in Britain.
Read the complete Vindolanda write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Vindolanda sits at 137 km, about halfway. Next is back through Brampton Old Church Roman fort and the med.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Brampton Old Church Roman fort and the med write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Brampton Old Church Roman fort and the med comes up about 145 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Bean Burn 1 Roman temporary camp.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Bean Burn 1 Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 172 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Bean Burn 1 Roman temporary camp. Next is back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Sunnybra.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Sunnybra write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Sunnybra, late in the day. Next is Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 4.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 4 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 232 km.
Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 4 → Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Sunnybra is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Sunnybra → Bean Burn 1 Roman temporary camp is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Bean Burn 1 Roman temporary camp → Brampton Old Church Roman fort and the med is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Brampton Old Church Roman fort and the med → Vindolanda is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Vindolanda → back through Brampton Old Church Roman fort and the med is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Brampton Old Church Roman fort and the med → back through Bean Burn 1 Roman temporary camp is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Bean Burn 1 Roman temporary camp → back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Sunnybra is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Sunnybra → Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 4 is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.