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 167 km round trip from Carlisle - roughly 2 h 15 in the saddle. The stops in between: Lees Hall Roman camp, Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the trac, Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 5 and back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the trac. The line favours views over speed.
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 is where the day begins. Next is Lees Hall Roman camp.
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 comes up about 29 km into the recorded legs. Next is Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the trac.
Just north of Hexham, the A road climbs out of the Tyne valley and meets the Roman frontier on a high, windy shoulder of Northumberland. Here, near Acomb, Wall and the crossing of the North Tyne at Chollerford, the line of Hadrian's Wall and its vallum runs across open farmland, sometimes visible as a low bank, sometimes followed by the road itself. Like every stretch of the frontier, it belongs to the UNESCO Frontiers of the Roman Empire, and this middle section is where the wall starts to feel serious, heading west into the wild central crags.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the trac write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 57 km into the recorded legs you reach Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the trac. Next is Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 5.
Wall mile 5 is in Newcastle, which means that the Roman frontier is under a bus route. The Wall began at Wallsend and ran west, and the antiquarians who surveyed it numbered every Roman mile from there, so mile five falls in Benwell, a hillside district of terraces above the Tyne. Here the old line is now more or less the West Road, a main road into the city, and a short way off the road you can find real Roman stone. A tiny temple dedicated to a local British god called Antenociticus stands in a small garden between modern houses, with its three altars copied in place, and the remains of the Vallum, the broad ditch south of the Wall, crosses a causeway nearby. The fort of Condercum stood on the hill above, with a fine view east down the river.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 5 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 5, about halfway. Next is back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the trac.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the trac write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the trac sits at 139 km, about halfway. Next is back through 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 through Lees Hall Roman camp comes up about 137 km into the recorded legs. Next is Moss Side 1 and 2 Roman temporary camps.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
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 closes the day.
Moss Side 1 and 2 Roman temporary camps → Lees Hall Roman camp is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Lees Hall Roman camp → Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the trac is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the trac → Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 5 is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 5 → back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the trac is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the trac → back through Lees Hall Roman camp is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Lees Hall Roman camp → Moss Side 1 and 2 Roman temporary camps is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.