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 126 km round trip from Carlisle - roughly 2 h 13 in the saddle. It goes by way of Watchclose Roman temporary camp, Eight Roman inscriptions in the Roman quar, Burnhead Roman temporary camp and Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel.
Not every Roman monument is made of stone. North of Carlisle, on low ground close to the Solway plain, the traces of a Roman temporary camp show up mainly as marks in the ground and in crops: a square or rectangle of ditch and bank, with rounded corners, where an army spent a night or two under leather tents. Nowtler Hill was one of those places. Marching armies built such camps every evening, digging the ditch and piling the earth into a rampart topped with stakes, so that even a short halt was protected.
Read the complete Nowtler Hill 2 Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Nowtler Hill 2 Roman temporary camp is where the day begins. Next is Watchclose Roman temporary camp.
East of Carlisle, between the villages of Brampton and Wetheral, the countryside rolls gently towards the Pennines, with green fields, hedges and patches of woodland. Somewhere in these fields lie the faint traces of Watchclose, a Roman temporary camp, one of many marching camps built by soldiers on campaign or during the construction of Hadrian's Wall. These camps were enclosed by a ditch and bank and used for a night or a season, and today they are often visible only from the air or as slight undulations in the grass. Watchclose is part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage site.
Read the complete Watchclose Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchclose Roman temporary camp comes up about 16 km into the recorded legs. Next is Eight Roman inscriptions in the Roman quar.
Building Hadrian's Wall took an enormous amount of stone, and the Romans quarried it wherever they could find good sandstone near the line. In the woods and crags around Banks and Lanercost, east of Brampton, several of these quarries survive, and on the rock faces the soldiers who worked them left their marks: names, unit symbols and short inscriptions carved into the stone nearly two thousand years ago. Coombe Crag, near the Wall here, is one of the best known, with names scratched by men who were probably bored, tired and far from home. Finding them takes a bit of searching and some imagination, as the letters are worn and lichen-covered, but there is something deeply human about them.
Read the complete Eight Roman inscriptions in the Roman quar write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 33 km into the recorded legs you reach Eight Roman inscriptions in the Roman quar. Next is Burnhead Roman temporary camp.
The Stanegate is the Roman road that came before the Wall, and Burnhead lies close to its line. Before Hadrian's engineers began their great work in AD 122, the frontier of Roman Britain ran along this road from Corbridge in the east to Carlisle in the west, guarded by forts at intervals of about a day's march, and the Wall was built a little to the north, along the crags. The camp at Burnhead, which belongs to the temporary camps that armies built on the march, is one of the faint earthworks in this country, a low square of bank and ditch in a field above the Haltwhistle Burn.
Read the complete Burnhead Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Burnhead Roman temporary camp, about halfway. Next is Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel.
Here the Wall is at its most dramatic. In the central sector of Hadrian's Wall, north of Haydon Bridge and Hexham in Northumberland, the Roman frontier runs along the top of the Whin Sill, a long ridge of hard volcanic rock that breaks the moorland into a series of north-facing cliffs. The Romans built their wall right along the crest, using the natural defences, and the result is a line of stone that rises and falls with the crags like the spine of a great animal. Behind it, to the south, runs the vallum, a broad earthwork ditch with mounds on either side that marked the military zone, still clearly visible across the fields.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel sits at 66 km, about halfway. Next is back through Burnhead Roman temporary camp.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Burnhead Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Burnhead Roman temporary camp comes up about 81 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Eight Roman inscriptions in the Roman quar.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Eight Roman inscriptions in the Roman quar write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 97 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Eight Roman inscriptions in the Roman quar. Next is back through Watchclose Roman temporary camp.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchclose Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchclose Roman temporary camp, late in the day. Next is Nowtler Hill 2 Roman temporary camp.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Nowtler Hill 2 Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 126 km.
Nowtler Hill 2 Roman temporary camp → Watchclose Roman temporary camp is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchclose Roman temporary camp → Eight Roman inscriptions in the Roman quar is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Eight Roman inscriptions in the Roman quar → Burnhead Roman temporary camp is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Burnhead Roman temporary camp → Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the fiel → back through Burnhead Roman temporary camp is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Burnhead Roman temporary camp → back through Eight Roman inscriptions in the Roman quar is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Eight Roman inscriptions in the Roman quar → back through Watchclose Roman temporary camp is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchclose Roman temporary camp → Nowtler Hill 2 Roman temporary camp is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.