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 138 km round trip from Brampton - roughly 2 h 12 in the saddle. It goes by way of Chesters Pike Roman temporary camp, Walwick Fell Roman temporary camp, Hadrian's Wall from Oatens Bank and back through Walwick Fell Roman temporary camp. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Brampton is a small red sandstone market town at the edge of the Pennines, and just north of it, where the land rises toward the Irthing valley, a stretch of the vallum runs across the fields near Garthside. The vallum, the great ditch and banks that ran south of Hadrian's Wall, is often clearer than the wall itself in this area, because the stone of the wall was carried off long ago to build farmhouses, churches and even a priory. It is part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage Site, and it is best seen in low light, when the earthworks cast long shadows.
Read the complete The vallum between the road to Garthside a write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The vallum between the road to Garthside a is where the day begins. Next is Chesters Pike Roman temporary camp.
The country around Haltwhistle is where Hadrian's Wall is at its most dramatic. The Romans built it along the Whin Sill, a ridge of hard volcanic rock that rises in a long wall of crags above the farmland, and the ruins of milecastles, turrets and forts run along the top, making a line that climbs and dips like a stitched seam. Haltwhistle claims to be the centre of Britain, which no one can prove, and the town has a quiet, grey-stone high street. A Roman temporary camp, like the one at Chesters Pike, was a marching camp, where an army dug a ditch and raised a bank around a night's lodging, and left almost nothing behind. Often the only trace is a faint rectangle in the grass.
Read the complete Chesters Pike Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Chesters Pike Roman temporary camp comes up about 25 km into the recorded legs. Next is Walwick Fell Roman temporary camp.
Roman armies on campaign dug in every night. Wherever they halted, soldiers threw up a rectangular earth rampart and ditch around their tents, and on Walwick Fell, a short way west of the North Tyne, the faint outline of one of those temporary camps survives in the rough pasture. You need a keen eye and low sunlight to make it out, but its presence is a reminder that the Wall was built, maintained and defended by thousands of men who lived and worked in these hills, sometimes under canvas, sometimes in stone forts.
Read the complete Walwick Fell Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 46 km into the recorded legs you reach Walwick Fell Roman temporary camp. Next is Hadrian's Wall from Oatens Bank.
The road west from Heddon-on-the-Wall runs straight as a ruler, and there is a reason for that. The B6318, known locally as the Military Road, was built by General Wade's engineers after the Jacobite rising of 1745 so that troops could move quickly between Newcastle and Carlisle, and for long stretches they laid it right on top of Hadrian's Wall, using the Roman stones as foundation. At Oatens Bank, just beyond Heddon, you ride with the Wall beneath your tyres and the ditch and vallum still visible in the fields beside you, two thousand years of frontier engineering compressed into a few metres.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall from Oatens Bank write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall from Oatens Bank, about halfway. Next is back through Walwick Fell Roman temporary camp.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Walwick Fell Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Walwick Fell Roman temporary camp sits at 99 km, about halfway. Next is back through Chesters Pike Roman temporary camp.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chesters Pike Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Chesters Pike Roman temporary camp comes up about 113 km into the recorded legs. Next is The vallum between the road to Garthside a.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The vallum between the road to Garthside a write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The vallum between the road to Garthside a closes the day.
The vallum between the road to Garthside a → Chesters Pike Roman temporary camp is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Chesters Pike Roman temporary camp → Walwick Fell Roman temporary camp is 21 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Walwick Fell Roman temporary camp → Hadrian's Wall from Oatens Bank is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall from Oatens Bank → back through Walwick Fell Roman temporary camp is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Walwick Fell Roman temporary camp → back through Chesters Pike Roman temporary camp is 21 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Chesters Pike Roman temporary camp → The vallum between the road to Garthside a is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.