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.
395 km from Benwell to Benwell, about 5 h 19 of riding. On the way it passes Bean Burn 1 Roman temporary camp, Studley Royal Park including the Ruins of and back through Bean Burn 1 Roman temporary camp. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
If the Wall was the barrier you could see, the vallum was the barrier you were not supposed to cross. This is a great flat-bottomed ditch, about six metres wide, with mounds of earth on either side, and it ran along the south of the Wall for most of its length, forming a kind of military zone behind the frontier. Nobody is quite sure of its purpose, though the usual theory is that it marked the rear boundary of the area and controlled the movement of people and goods. At Benwell, within Newcastle, the vallum has one of its best-known features, a stone causeway that allowed the road to cross the ditch near the fort gate, a neat piece of Roman engineering that came to light in the twentieth century.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall vallum in wall mile 6 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall vallum in wall mile 6 is where the day begins. 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.
Bean Burn 1 Roman temporary camp comes up about 51 km into the recorded legs. Next is Studley Royal Park including the Ruins of.
Fountains Abbey is the largest monastic ruin in Britain, and it stands in a valley so green and quiet that it hardly seems real. In 1132, a group of Benedictine monks, dissatisfied with the lax life at York, left their abbey and sought a stricter rule, and with the help of the archbishop, they settled in this remote valley beside the river Skell. They became Cistercians, and over the next four centuries the abbey grew rich on sheep and wool, building a huge church, a vaulted cellarium, and a tower that still rises above the ruins. Henry VIII dissolved the abbey in 1539, and the roofs were stripped for lead.
Read the complete Studley Royal Park including the Ruins of write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 198 km into the recorded legs you reach Studley Royal Park including the Ruins of. 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.
back through Bean Burn 1 Roman temporary camp, late in the day. Next is Hadrian's Wall vallum in wall mile 6.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall vallum in wall mile 6 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Hadrian's Wall vallum in wall mile 6. That is the ride.
Hadrian's Wall vallum in wall mile 6 → Bean Burn 1 Roman temporary camp is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Bean Burn 1 Roman temporary camp → Studley Royal Park including the Ruins of is 147 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Studley Royal Park including the Ruins of → back through Bean Burn 1 Roman temporary camp is 145 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Bean Burn 1 Roman temporary camp → Hadrian's Wall vallum in wall mile 6 is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.