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 Annan it runs 152 km to Annan; allow about 2 h 51 of riding. The stops in between: Hadrian's Wall vallum between the dismantl, Hadrian's Wall between the road to Laversd, Hadrian's Wall between the field boundary and The vallum between the road to Laversdale.
Bowness-on-Solway is where Hadrian's Wall ends, or begins, depending on which way you are walking. This quiet village on the southern shore of the Solway Firth sits on top of the Roman fort of Maia, the second largest on the Wall, and its civilian settlement, which together make up the site on the label, part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage site. Almost nothing of the fort survives above ground, as much of the stone went into the houses, church and farm buildings of the village, but you can find Roman stones reused in walls if you look closely.
Read the complete The Roman fort and associated civil settle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Roman fort and associated civil settle is where the day begins. Next is Hadrian's Wall vallum between the dismantl.
West of Carlisle, Hadrian's Wall heads out across flat farmland toward the Solway Firth, and the closer you get to the estuary, the quieter it becomes. Along this stretch, the wall itself has largely gone, robbed for stone over the centuries, but the vallum, the wide ditch with its mounds that ran behind it, can still be traced in places, and the line passes the sites of Roman forts and the civilian settlements that grew up around them. At Stanwix, now a suburb on the north bank of the Eden, stood the largest fort on the whole wall, home to a cavalry regiment of a thousand men. Further west, at Burgh by Sands, another fort lies beneath the village and its fortified church, built partly with Roman stone.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall vallum between the dismantl write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall vallum between the dismantl comes up about 19 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 38 km into the recorded legs you reach Hadrian's Wall between the road to Laversd. 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.
Hadrian's Wall between the field boundary, 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 67 km, about halfway. 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.
back through Hadrian's Wall between the field boundary comes up about 96 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 114 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Hadrian's Wall between the road to Laversd. Next is back through Hadrian's Wall vallum between the dismantl.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall vallum between the dismantl write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Hadrian's Wall vallum between the dismantl, late in the day. Next is The Roman fort and associated civil settle.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Roman fort and associated civil settle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 152 km.
The Roman fort and associated civil settle → Hadrian's Wall vallum between the dismantl is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall vallum between the dismantl → Hadrian's Wall between the road to Laversd is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall between the road to Laversd → Hadrian's Wall between the field boundary is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall between the field boundary → The vallum between the road to Laversdale is 18 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The vallum between the road to Laversdale → back through Hadrian's Wall between the field boundary is 20 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 Hadrian's Wall between the road to Laversd is 18 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 vallum between the dismantl is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hadrian's Wall vallum between the dismantl → The Roman fort and associated civil settle is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.