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 147 km round trip from Silloth - roughly 2 h 44 in the saddle. On the way it passes Kirkbride Roman fort, Hadrian's Wall between the field boundary, Hadrian's Wall between the road to Laversd and Beaumont motte castle and section of Hadri.
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 17 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
Hadrian's Wall did not simply stop at the edge of the Solway. Beyond its western end at Bowness, the Romans continued the frontier down the Cumbrian coast with a chain of milefortlets and towers, and in places with ditches and palisades, to watch over the shoreline and guard against raids across the firth from what is now south west Scotland. The palisade ditches near Silloth are part of that coastal system, faint traces in the flat land behind the dunes, and they are a reminder that the Roman frontier was a complex network that stretched far beyond the famous stone wall.
Read the complete Palisade ditches write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Palisade ditches is where the day begins. Next is Kirkbride Roman fort.
The tide turns the Solway Firth into an enormous, shifting plain of sand and water, and the Roman fort at Kirkbride stood at the edge of it. Here, at the western limit of the frontier in the lower Eden valley, the Romans built a fort to guard the crossing of the estuary, and the earthworks show a rectangular platform in a field by the village. The fort belonged to the Wall system, which continued along the coast, and the first thing a visitor realises is how big the view is. On a clear day you can see the Scottish hills across the water, and the ridges of Criffel and Burnswark, and the line of the shore bending away to the west.
Read the complete Kirkbride Roman fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kirkbride Roman fort comes up about 20 km into the recorded legs. Next is Hadrian's Wall between the field boundary.
Just outside Carlisle, among hedges and grazing fields, a short protected length of ground marks where Hadrian's Wall once ran between two farm boundaries. That is all the official name means, and the honest truth is that there is very little to see: a gentle bank, perhaps a slight ditch, the alignment of a hedge that follows the Roman line because nobody ever bothered to move it. What makes it worth a pause is the bigger picture. The wall here was heading for the crossing of the River Eden, where it met the fort of Stanwix on the north bank, the biggest fort on the entire frontier, home to an elite cavalry regiment a thousand strong.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall between the field boundary write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 36 km into the recorded legs you reach Hadrian's Wall between the field boundary. Next is Hadrian's Wall between the road to Laversd.
East of Carlisle the Eden valley opens into a wide, quiet plain of dairy farms, hedges and red sandstone villages, and Hadrian's Wall crosses it with very little to show. Here the Wall was not built of stone at first. West of the river Irthing the Romans made it out of turf, a sloping rampart of cut sods with timber milecastles, and only later rebuilt it in stone. What survives in the fields around Laversdale is mostly a line of banks and ditches, visible as a ripple in the grass and in the pattern of the hedges, and the road that you follow probably owes its direction to the old frontier. It is a fine place to understand that the Wall was a system, not just a fence: a ditch, a barrier, a patrol road and a back ditch called the Vallum.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall between the road to Laversd write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall between the road to Laversd, about halfway. Next is Beaumont motte castle and section of Hadri.
Beaumont is one of those small places where history is stacked in layers, like books on a shelf. The little church of St Mary stands on a grassy mound that was once a Norman motte, a castle earthwork, and that mound in turn sits right on the line of Hadrian's Wall as it heads west from Carlisle towards the Solway. The builders of the motte used the Roman wall as a convenient quarry and foundation, and the church builders after them did the same. You will find no tall Roman masonry here, only the line itself, traced in field boundaries and the slight rise of the ground, and an awareness that you are standing on the edge of an empire.
Read the complete Beaumont motte castle and section of Hadri write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beaumont motte castle and section of Hadri sits at 66 km, about halfway. Next is back through Hadrian's Wall between the road to Laversd.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall between the road to Laversd write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Hadrian's Wall between the road to Laversd comes up about 93 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Hadrian's Wall between the field boundary.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall between the field boundary write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 111 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Hadrian's Wall between the field boundary. Next is back through Kirkbride Roman fort.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kirkbride Roman fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Kirkbride Roman fort, late in the day. Next is Palisade ditches.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Palisade ditches write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 147 km.
Palisade ditches → Kirkbride Roman fort is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kirkbride Roman fort → Hadrian's Wall between the field boundary is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall between the field boundary → Hadrian's Wall between the road to Laversd is 18 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall between the road to Laversd → Beaumont motte castle and section of Hadri is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beaumont motte castle and section of Hadri → back through Hadrian's Wall between the road to Laversd is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hadrian's Wall between the road to Laversd → back through Hadrian's Wall between the field boundary is 18 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hadrian's Wall between the field boundary → back through Kirkbride Roman fort is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Kirkbride Roman fort → Palisade ditches is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.