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 285 km round trip from Maryport - roughly 4 h 44 in the saddle. On the way it passes Biglands House, Hadrian's Wall between the road to Laversd, Roman aqueduct to Great Chesters from the and Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the trac. The line favours views over speed.
Milefortlets are the small, easily overlooked members of the Roman frontier family. On Hadrian's Wall itself they stood every Roman mile, with a gate through the wall and a tiny garrison, and when the Romans extended the system along the Cumbrian coast, to guard against landings from across the Solway, they built milefortlets and watchtowers all the way down the shore. Number 21 stood at Swarthy Hill, on a low rise by the sea north of Maryport, and excavations here showed a small rectangular fortlet with timber buildings inside and a ditch around.
Read the complete Swarthy Hill milefortlet 21 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Swarthy Hill milefortlet 21 is where the day begins. Next is Biglands House.
Out on the Cumbrian shore of the Solway Firth, at the far western end of Hadrian's frontier, Biglands is a farmhouse name attached to the site of a small Roman milefortlet, one of the posts that carried the Wall's chain of defences down the coast once the stone curtain itself had stopped at Bowness. There is very little to see above ground; the fortlet was excavated and then returned to the grass. What you come for is the setting and the sense of standing at the edge of an empire, looking across a few kilometres of mud and water at Scotland.
Read the complete Biglands House write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Biglands House comes up about 41 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 78 km into the recorded legs you reach Hadrian's Wall between the road to Laversd. Next is Roman aqueduct to Great Chesters from the.
The Romans were obsessed with water, and even on this bleak ridge they went to extraordinary trouble to bring it to their fort. The fort of Great Chesters, called Aesica in Roman times, stood on a crag high above the Haltwhistle Burn, with no spring close enough to supply a garrison of several hundred men and their animals. So the engineers built an aqueduct, an open channel that ran for about eight kilometres, following the contours of the land from a stream to the west, and delivered a steady flow into the fort. It was no great arched structure with spans of stone, but a simple ditch, and its beauty lies in the precision of the gradient. You can still trace the channel as a shallow line in the grass.
Read the complete Roman aqueduct to Great Chesters from the write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Roman aqueduct to Great Chesters from the, about halfway. 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.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the trac sits at 139 km, about halfway. Next is back through Roman aqueduct to Great Chesters from the.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Roman aqueduct to Great Chesters from the write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Roman aqueduct to Great Chesters from the comes up about 176 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 207 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Hadrian's Wall between the road to Laversd. Next is back through Biglands House.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Biglands House write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Biglands House, late in the day. Next is Swarthy Hill milefortlet 21.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Swarthy Hill milefortlet 21 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 285 km.
Swarthy Hill milefortlet 21 → Biglands House is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Biglands House → Hadrian's Wall between the road to Laversd is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall between the road to Laversd → Roman aqueduct to Great Chesters from the is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Roman aqueduct to Great Chesters from the → Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the trac is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum between the trac → back through Roman aqueduct to Great Chesters from the is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Roman aqueduct to Great Chesters from the → back through Hadrian's Wall between the road to Laversd is 31 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 Biglands House is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Biglands House → Swarthy Hill milefortlet 21 is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.