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 123 km round trip from Haltwhistle - roughly 1 h 43 in the saddle. On the way it passes Limestone Corner Roman temporary camp, Hadrian's Wall from Oatens Bank, Roman fort and back through Hadrian's Wall from Oatens Bank. 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 Limestone Corner Roman temporary camp.
Limestone Corner is the most northerly point on Hadrian's Wall, and it is famous for a job left unfinished. The Romans dug a defensive ditch in front of the Wall along most of its length, but here they hit a band of hard whinstone, and after cutting some of the huge blocks free and splitting others with wedges, they simply gave up. The blocks still lie where they were left, some with the holes for the wedges visible, nearly nineteen centuries later. Nearby, the earthworks of a Roman temporary camp, where troops on the move once pitched their tents behind a ditch and bank, are part of the same Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage site.
Read the complete Limestone Corner Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Limestone Corner Roman temporary camp comes up about 18 km into the recorded legs. Next is Hadrian's Wall from Oatens Bank.
The road west from Heddon-on-the-Wall runs straight as a ruler, and there is a reason for that. The B6318, known locally as the Military Road, was built by General Wade's engineers after the Jacobite rising of 1745 so that troops could move quickly between Newcastle and Carlisle, and for long stretches they laid it right on top of Hadrian's Wall, using the Roman stones as foundation. At Oatens Bank, just beyond Heddon, you ride with the Wall beneath your tyres and the ditch and vallum still visible in the fields beside you, two thousand years of frontier engineering compressed into a few metres.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall from Oatens Bank write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 39 km into the recorded legs you reach Hadrian's Wall from Oatens Bank. Next is Roman fort.
Newcastle got its name from a castle built in 1080 by Robert Curthose, eldest son of William the Conqueror, but the hilltop he chose above the Tyne had already been used for centuries. Beneath the Castle Keep and the Black Gate lie the remains of Pons Aelius, a small Roman fort that guarded a bridge across the river near the eastern end of Hadrian's Wall. The name honoured Hadrian himself, whose family name was Aelius. Outlines of the fort are marked in the paving around the keep, and the Swing Bridge below crosses the river close to where the Roman bridge stood.
Read the complete Roman fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Roman fort, about halfway. Next is back through Hadrian's Wall from Oatens Bank.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall from Oatens Bank write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Hadrian's Wall from Oatens Bank sits at 101 km, about halfway. Next is back through Limestone Corner Roman temporary camp.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Limestone Corner Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Limestone Corner Roman temporary camp comes up about 104 km into the recorded legs. 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.
Lees Hall Roman camp closes the day.
Lees Hall Roman camp → Limestone Corner Roman temporary camp is 18 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Limestone Corner Roman temporary camp → Hadrian's Wall from Oatens Bank is 21 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall from Oatens Bank → Roman fort is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Roman fort → back through Hadrian's Wall from Oatens Bank is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hadrian's Wall from Oatens Bank → back through Limestone Corner Roman temporary camp is 21 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Limestone Corner Roman temporary camp → Lees Hall Roman camp is 18 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.