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 197 km round trip from Annan - roughly 3 h 15 in the saddle. On the way it passes Dubmill Point milefortlet 17, Parton Roman fort, Ravenglass Roman fort bath-house and back through Parton Roman fort. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 31 km this is Hardknott and Wrynose Passes, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
A turret on Hadrian's Wall was a small stone tower, about the size of a garden shed, built into the wall itself so that two soldiers could shelter and watch the country. Two turrets stood between each pair of milecastles, spaced about a third of a Roman mile apart, which means a signal could be passed along the wall in minutes by lamp, horn or flag. Turret 3a, near Pasture House on the Solway plain, is one of those tiny posts, and it is a good place to imagine the monotony of the job: a cold, damp night, a wide flat horizon, and the wind in the grass.
Read the complete Pasture House turret 3a write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Pasture House turret 3a is where the day begins. Next is Dubmill Point milefortlet 17.
Dubmill Point is where the Solway coast road comes closest to the sea, and on stormy days with a high tide, waves break right over the B5300 and the road can be closed. The point is a low spit of shingle and grass between Allonby and Silloth, and here the Romans built milefortlet 17, part of the coastal defences that extended the frontier of Hadrian's Wall down the Cumbrian shore. A small garrison watched the firth for boats crossing from the north, and signals passed from post to post along the coast. Little remains today, but the site is exposed and evocative, with the sea on one side and the flat fields of the coastal plain on the other.
Read the complete Dubmill Point milefortlet 17 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Dubmill Point milefortlet 17 comes up about 37 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 68 km into the recorded legs you reach Parton Roman fort. Next is Ravenglass Roman fort bath-house.
Walls Castle is the odd name for a Roman bath house, and the building still stands to a height of about four metres, one of the tallest Roman structures in northern England. It stood outside the fort of Glannoventa at Ravenglass, a harbour station at the meeting of three rivers, the Irt, the Mite and the Esk, and in the dry shelter of the dunes it has survived because its walls were thick and well built. You can walk around it on a short path from the village, and see niches and a doorway in the thick walls. The fort itself lies mostly under farmland and the railway.
Read the complete Ravenglass Roman fort bath-house write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ravenglass Roman fort bath-house, about halfway. Next is back through Parton Roman fort.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Parton Roman fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Parton Roman fort sits at 129 km, about halfway. Next is back through Dubmill Point milefortlet 17.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Dubmill Point milefortlet 17 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Dubmill Point milefortlet 17 comes up about 161 km into the recorded legs. Next is Pasture House turret 3a.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Pasture House turret 3a write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Pasture House turret 3a closes the day.
Pasture House turret 3a → Dubmill Point milefortlet 17 is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Dubmill Point milefortlet 17 → Parton Roman fort is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Parton Roman fort → Ravenglass Roman fort bath-house is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ravenglass Roman fort bath-house → back through Parton Roman fort is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Parton Roman fort → back through Dubmill Point milefortlet 17 is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Dubmill Point milefortlet 17 → Pasture House turret 3a is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.