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 Greenhead it runs 255 km to Greenhead; allow about 3 h 59 of riding. It goes by way of Hadrian's Wall between Port Carlisle and B, Parton Roman fort and back through Hadrian's Wall between Port Carlisle and B. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
The vallum is the strangest part of Hadrian's Wall, and the one that nobody fully understands. It is a great flat-bottomed ditch, with a mound on each side, running along the south of the Wall for its whole length, and it was dug soon after the Wall was begun. The usual explanation is that it marked the back edge of the military zone, a boundary that civilians were not meant to cross except at controlled crossings, but nobody knows quite what it was for. Between Cockmount Hill and the village of Walltown, the vallum is clear and well preserved, a green trench in the field that you can follow with the eye for a long way.
Read the complete The vallum between Cockmount Hill and Wall write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The vallum between Cockmount Hill and Wall is where the day begins. Next is Hadrian's Wall between Port Carlisle and B.
The western end of Hadrian's Wall is not where most people expect. Instead of a grand terminus, the frontier fades out among the tidal mud and salt marsh of the Solway Firth, near the village of Bowness-on-Solway, where the last fort once stood. Between Port Carlisle and Bowness the wall is almost entirely gone, its stones carried away for later buildings, and what survives is a line across the fields, a slight rise and a path along the shore. In this section the wall was originally built of turf rather than stone, a cheaper material for the flatter, softer ground.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall between Port Carlisle and B write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall between Port Carlisle and B comes up about 64 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 128 km into the recorded legs you reach Parton Roman fort. Next is back through Hadrian's Wall between Port Carlisle and B.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall between Port Carlisle and B write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Hadrian's Wall between Port Carlisle and B, late in the day. Next is The vallum between Cockmount Hill and Wall.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The vallum between Cockmount Hill and Wall write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at The vallum between Cockmount Hill and Wall. That is the ride.
The vallum between Cockmount Hill and Wall → Hadrian's Wall between Port Carlisle and B is 64 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall between Port Carlisle and B → Parton Roman fort is 64 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Parton Roman fort → back through Hadrian's Wall between Port Carlisle and B is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hadrian's Wall between Port Carlisle and B → The vallum between Cockmount Hill and Wall is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.