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 Maryport it runs 287 km to Maryport; allow about 4 h 51 of riding. The stops in between: Biglands House, Hadrian's Wall between the road to Laversd, Roman aqueduct to Great Chesters from the and The vallum between the road to Laversdale. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Along the Cumbrian coast between Silloth and Maryport, the Roman frontier did not end when Hadrian's stone Wall reached Bowness. A chain of milefortlets and towers continued down the shore, watching the Solway for raiders arriving by boat, and Tower 20b near Swarthy Hill is one of them. It was a small stone watchtower, probably manned by a handful of soldiers, and what remains is a low outline in the turf above the beach. You come for the context and the view across the water rather than for the masonry.
Read the complete Swarthy Hill North tower 20b write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Swarthy Hill North tower 20b 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 40 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 77 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 The vallum between the road to Laversdale.
When the Romans abandoned their Wall, local builders found it a splendid quarry. Lanercost Priory, a few kilometres east of Brampton, was begun in the twelfth century by Augustinian canons, and its red sandstone includes dressed stones that were once part of the Wall and its forts, still marked with the tool lines of Roman masons. Naworth Castle, close by, was built from the same stone. In that sense, the Wall never really went away: it turned into churches, castles and farm walls across the north of England.
Read the complete The vallum between the road to Laversdale write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The vallum between the road to Laversdale sits at 138 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 175 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 210 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 North tower 20b.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Swarthy Hill North tower 20b write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 287 km.
Swarthy Hill North tower 20b → Biglands House is 40 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 → The vallum between the road to Laversdale is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The vallum between the road to Laversdale → back through Roman aqueduct to Great Chesters from the is 32 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 35 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 North tower 20b is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.