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.
From Prudhoe it runs 264 km to Prudhoe; allow about 3 h 58 of riding. On the way it passes Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 0, Durham Castle and Cathedral, Vindolanda and back through Durham Castle and Cathedral. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 32 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
Rudchester, known to the Romans as Vindobala, was the fourth fort along Hadrian's Wall counting from Wallsend at the eastern end. It sat astride the Wall on high ground west of Newcastle, with a garrison of around five hundred soldiers. Today, there is nothing to see above ground but fields and the bumps and hollows of buried walls, with a farm nearby. Excavations in the twentieth century found traces of a temple to Mithras just outside the fort, one of several on the Wall, where soldiers worshipped the god in a dark, cave-like building.
Read the complete Rudchester Roman fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Rudchester Roman fort is where the day begins. Next is Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 0.
Wall mile zero is where Hadrian's Wall began, or ended, depending on which way you are riding, and it is in the most unlikely setting you could imagine: Wallsend, on the north bank of the Tyne, among terraced streets and the cranes of what was once one of the great shipbuilding rivers of the world. The town's name says it all. Here stood Segedunum, the easternmost fort of the wall, and its foundations have been laid bare beside the road, with a viewing tower that lets you see the whole plan at once, barracks, headquarters and gates, like a diagram on the ground.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 0 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 0 comes up about 22 km into the recorded legs. Next is Durham Castle and Cathedral.
The river Wear loops around a rocky peninsula in a tight horseshoe, and on top of it, rising above the trees, stand Durham Cathedral and Durham Castle, one of the most impressive views in Britain. The Normans built both in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries, soon after the Conquest, as a statement of power in the turbulent north. The cathedral is a masterpiece of Romanesque architecture, with massive columns carved with zigzags and spirals, and its stone rib vaults are among the earliest of their kind in Europe, pointing the way to Gothic architecture. Together, castle and cathedral were listed by UNESCO in 1986.
Read the complete Durham Castle and Cathedral write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 57 km into the recorded legs you reach Durham Castle and Cathedral. Next is Vindolanda.
Vindolanda is the place where the Romans on the northern frontier start to sound like people. The fort stood on the Stanegate road, just south of the wall, and for several centuries it was rebuilt again and again, each new fort laid on top of the last. The damp, airless soil preserved wood and leather, and in 1973 archaeologists found thin wooden writing tablets covered in ink, letters written by soldiers, officers and their families in about AD 100. They are the oldest handwritten documents found in Britain.
Read the complete Vindolanda write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Vindolanda, about halfway. Next is back through Durham Castle and Cathedral.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Durham Castle and Cathedral write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Durham Castle and Cathedral sits at 177 km, about halfway. Next is back through Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 0.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 0 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 0 comes up about 241 km into the recorded legs. Next is Rudchester Roman fort.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Rudchester Roman fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Rudchester Roman fort closes the day.
Rudchester Roman fort → Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 0 is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 0 → Durham Castle and Cathedral is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Durham Castle and Cathedral → Vindolanda is 74 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Vindolanda → back through Durham Castle and Cathedral is 73 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Durham Castle and Cathedral → back through Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 0 is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hadrian's Wall in wall mile 0 → Rudchester Roman fort is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.