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.
267 km from Carlisle to Carlisle, about 4 h 15 of riding. The stops in between: Roman signal station on Mains Rigg, Carrawburgh Roman fort & Hadrian's Wall &, Rudchester Roman fort and Durham Castle and Cathedral. The line favours views over speed.
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.
West of Carlisle, Hadrian's Wall heads out across flat farmland toward the Solway Firth, and the closer you get to the estuary, the quieter it becomes. Along this stretch, the wall itself has largely gone, robbed for stone over the centuries, but the vallum, the wide ditch with its mounds that ran behind it, can still be traced in places, and the line passes the sites of Roman forts and the civilian settlements that grew up around them. At Stanwix, now a suburb on the north bank of the Eden, stood the largest fort on the whole wall, home to a cavalry regiment of a thousand men. Further west, at Burgh by Sands, another fort lies beneath the village and its fortified church, built partly with Roman stone.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall vallum between the dismantl write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall vallum between the dismantl is where the day begins. Next is Roman signal station on Mains Rigg.
On a low ridge south of the Wall, near the village of Low Row, the foundations of a Roman stone tower sit in a field with a commanding view up and down the Irthing valley. The signal station on Mains Rigg belonged to the system of the Stanegate, the road that ran from Corbridge to Carlisle before the Wall was built, and it allowed messages to be passed between forts by fire, smoke or flags. From here, on a clear day, you can see for miles: west to Carlisle, east toward the Pennines and north over the Wall.
Read the complete Roman signal station on Mains Rigg write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Roman signal station on Mains Rigg comes up about 30 km into the recorded legs. Next is Carrawburgh Roman fort & Hadrian's Wall &.
Of all the Roman sites along Hadrian's Wall, Carrawburgh may be the most mysterious. The fort itself, called Brocolitia, is largely unexcavated, a grassy platform beside the Military Road, but just below it, in a boggy hollow, stands the reconstructed outline of a small temple of Mithras, the soldiers' god, whose cult was popular among the Roman army. The temple was excavated in 1949, and its three altars, now replaced by replicas, the originals being in the Great North Museum in Newcastle, were dedicated by commanders of the garrison. Nearby, a spring dedicated to the water goddess Coventina yielded an astonishing hoard of coins, altars and offerings when it was excavated in the nineteenth century, around thirteen thousand coins in all.
Read the complete Carrawburgh Roman fort & Hadrian's Wall & write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 56 km into the recorded legs you reach Carrawburgh Roman fort & Hadrian's Wall &. Next is Rudchester Roman fort.
Rudchester, known to the Romans as Vindobala, was the fourth fort along Hadrian's Wall counting from Wallsend at the eastern end. It sat astride the Wall on high ground west of Newcastle, with a garrison of around five hundred soldiers. Today, there is nothing to see above ground but fields and the bumps and hollows of buried walls, with a farm nearby. Excavations in the twentieth century found traces of a temple to Mithras just outside the fort, one of several on the Wall, where soldiers worshipped the god in a dark, cave-like building.
Read the complete Rudchester Roman fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Rudchester Roman fort, 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 144 km, about halfway. Next is back through Rudchester Roman fort.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Rudchester Roman fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Rudchester Roman fort comes up about 182 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Carrawburgh Roman fort & Hadrian's Wall &.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Carrawburgh Roman fort & Hadrian's Wall & write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 210 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Carrawburgh Roman fort & Hadrian's Wall &. Next is back through Roman signal station on Mains Rigg.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Roman signal station on Mains Rigg write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Roman signal station on Mains Rigg, late in the day. Next is Hadrian's Wall vallum between the dismantl.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall vallum between the dismantl write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 267 km.
Hadrian's Wall vallum between the dismantl → Roman signal station on Mains Rigg is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Roman signal station on Mains Rigg → Carrawburgh Roman fort & Hadrian's Wall & is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Carrawburgh Roman fort & Hadrian's Wall & → Rudchester Roman fort is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Rudchester Roman fort → Durham Castle and Cathedral is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Durham Castle and Cathedral → back through Rudchester Roman fort is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Rudchester Roman fort → back through Carrawburgh Roman fort & Hadrian's Wall & is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Carrawburgh Roman fort & Hadrian's Wall & → back through Roman signal station on Mains Rigg is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Roman signal station on Mains Rigg → Hadrian's Wall vallum between the dismantl is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.