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 127 km round trip from Hexham - roughly 1 h 49 in the saddle. The stops in between: Grindon School Roman temporary camp, Crooks Roman temporary camp, Moss Side 1 and 2 Roman temporary camps and back through Crooks Roman temporary camp. The line favours views over speed.
Where Dere Street, the great Roman road north from York, met Hadrian's Wall, the Romans built a gateway, and a mile or so west of it they placed the fort of Haltonchesters, known to them as Onnum. Today the site is a grassy field on the edge of the Military Road above the Tyne valley, with little to see beyond the faint outline of ramparts. But the setting is the thing: rolling Northumberland farmland, stone walls, the Tyne below, and on a clear day views far to the north and south.
Read the complete Haltonchesters Roman fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Haltonchesters Roman fort is where the day begins. Next is Grindon School Roman temporary camp.
Marching soldiers did not sleep in the open. Every night on campaign, a Roman army dug a ditch and threw up a rampart around its tents, and the faint outlines of these temporary camps are scattered across Northumberland, some dating from the conquest of the north, others from the building of the Wall. The camp near the old Grindon school, close to the Stanegate a little north of Haydon Bridge, is one of these. You will need a good map and a low sun to make out its banks.
Read the complete Grindon School Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Grindon School Roman temporary camp comes up about 20 km into the recorded legs. Next is Crooks Roman temporary camp.
The Roman army on the march built a camp every night: a rectangle of ditch and rampart, with tents inside, defended by sentries. These temporary camps, often used only once or for a short campaign, left faint traces in the landscape, and many have been found from the air in the north of England. Crooks, near Haltwhistle and Greenhead, in the area where Northumberland meets Cumbria, is one of several temporary camps along the line of Hadrian's Wall, probably used by the soldiers who built the Wall in the second century.
Read the complete Crooks Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 39 km into the recorded legs you reach Crooks Roman temporary camp. Next is Moss Side 1 and 2 Roman temporary camps.
Don't expect walls. The two Roman temporary camps at Moss Side are the sort of monument you mostly have to imagine: a pair of rectangles traced in the fields east of Carlisle, known from cropmarks and low earthworks rather than anything that rises above the grass. What you are looking at is a farmed slope of the lower Eden country, hedges and pasture, with Scotby and Wetheral a few kilometres off and the city of Carlisle seven kilometres to the west. The point of stopping is to stand where a Roman army once dug in for the night and to let the landscape do the explaining.
Read the complete Moss Side 1 and 2 Roman temporary camps write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Moss Side 1 and 2 Roman temporary camps, about halfway. Next is back through Crooks Roman temporary camp.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Crooks Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Crooks Roman temporary camp sits at 99 km, about halfway. Next is back through Grindon School Roman temporary camp.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Grindon School Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Grindon School Roman temporary camp comes up about 107 km into the recorded legs. Next is Haltonchesters Roman fort.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Haltonchesters Roman fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Haltonchesters Roman fort closes the day.
Haltonchesters Roman fort → Grindon School Roman temporary camp is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Grindon School Roman temporary camp → Crooks Roman temporary camp is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Crooks Roman temporary camp → Moss Side 1 and 2 Roman temporary camps is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Moss Side 1 and 2 Roman temporary camps → back through Crooks Roman temporary camp is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Crooks Roman temporary camp → back through Grindon School Roman temporary camp is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Grindon School Roman temporary camp → Haltonchesters Roman fort is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.