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 227 km round trip from Haltwhistle - roughly 3 h 38 in the saddle. The stops in between: Hadrian's Wall vallum between the watercou, Parton Roman fort and back through Hadrian's Wall vallum between the watercou. The line favours views over speed.
Haltwhistle likes to call itself the centre of Britain, a claim measured with some creativity, and it is certainly the middle of Hadrian's Wall country, a small market town on the South Tyne where the river valley narrows between the Pennines and the Wall crags. Lees Hall Roman camp is one of the temporary camps the army threw up while building the Wall or on campaign, a rectangle of bank and ditch now softened by grass. These marching camps were quick, practical affairs, ploughed flat in many places, and what survives is mostly a faint earthwork seen best in low evening light.
Read the complete Lees Hall Roman camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Lees Hall Roman camp is where the day begins. Next is Hadrian's Wall vallum between the watercou.
The vallum is the strangest part of Hadrian's Wall, and a good place to see it is on the flat ground near Bowness-on-Solway. It is a broad, deep ditch with a flat bottom, flanked by two mounds of earth set back from the edge, and it ran along the south side of the wall for its whole length. Nobody is certain what it was for, but the best theory is that it marked the rear boundary of a military zone, a line that civilians could cross only at controlled points, which fits with the idea of the wall as a border of customs and security as well as defence.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall vallum between the watercou write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall vallum between the watercou comes up about 54 km into the recorded legs. Next is Parton Roman fort.
Hadrian's Wall stopped at Bowness-on-Solway, but the Roman frontier did not. Down the Cumbrian coast, the army built a chain of forts, milefortlets and towers to watch the sea and stop raiders slipping round the end of the Wall, and Parton, just north of Whitehaven, was one of them. The fort is known from excavations and records rather than standing remains, and the coastal defences as a whole are included in the UNESCO Frontiers of the Roman Empire. Standing on the cliffs above the sea, you can see why the Romans worried: across the water lie the Isle of Man and, on clear days, the hills of Scotland.
Read the complete Parton Roman fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 113 km into the recorded legs you reach Parton Roman fort. Next is back through Hadrian's Wall vallum between the watercou.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall vallum between the watercou write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Hadrian's Wall vallum between the watercou, late in the day. Next is Lees Hall Roman camp.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Lees Hall Roman camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Lees Hall Roman camp. That is the ride.
Lees Hall Roman camp → Hadrian's Wall vallum between the watercou is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall vallum between the watercou → Parton Roman fort is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Parton Roman fort → back through Hadrian's Wall vallum between the watercou is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hadrian's Wall vallum between the watercou → Lees Hall Roman camp is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.