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 Silloth it runs 193 km to Silloth; allow about 3 h 11 of riding. The stops in between: Burgh by Sands Roman fort, Eight Roman inscriptions in the Roman quar, Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp and back through Eight Roman inscriptions in the Roman quar. The line favours views over speed.
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 35 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
Hadrian's Wall gets the fame, but the Roman frontier did not simply stop at Bowness-on-Solway. Beyond the end of the wall, a chain of milefortlets and towers continued down the Cumbrian coast, watching the Solway Firth for raiders from the north. Wolsty South, tower 13b, was one of them, a small stone watchtower near Silloth on the low, windy coast. There is little to see today, often just a mark in the ground, but the site is part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire listed by UNESCO, and its position tells a story: from here, Roman soldiers looked across the water to the hills of Scotland.
Read the complete Wolsty South tower 13b write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Wolsty South tower 13b is where the day begins. Next is Burgh by Sands Roman fort.
When King Edward I died in 1307, he was camped on the Solway marshes, on his way north to deal with Robert the Bruce once more, and the spot is marked by a monument beside the road near Burgh by Sands. Long before him the Romans had built a fort here, called Aballava, on a low ridge above the tidal flats, with a garrison of troops from the Moorish provinces of North Africa. Today the little village is spread along a single road, and its church, St Michael's, is built partly of Roman stone and has a defensive tower, a reminder of the centuries of Border raiding that followed.
Read the complete Burgh by Sands Roman fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Burgh by Sands Roman fort comes up about 35 km into the recorded legs. Next is Eight Roman inscriptions in the Roman quar.
Building Hadrian's Wall took an enormous amount of stone, and the Romans quarried it wherever they could find good sandstone near the line. In the woods and crags around Banks and Lanercost, east of Brampton, several of these quarries survive, and on the rock faces the soldiers who worked them left their marks: names, unit symbols and short inscriptions carved into the stone nearly two thousand years ago. Coombe Crag, near the Wall here, is one of the best known, with names scratched by men who were probably bored, tired and far from home. Finding them takes a bit of searching and some imagination, as the letters are worn and lichen-covered, but there is something deeply human about them.
Read the complete Eight Roman inscriptions in the Roman quar write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 67 km into the recorded legs you reach Eight Roman inscriptions in the Roman quar. Next is Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp.
Look for a faint rectangle in the rough grass north of the Military Road, a few kilometres west of Chollerford, and you will have found Brown Dikes, one of a cluster of Roman temporary camps on the high ground above the North Tyne. Nothing stands here, no walls or gates, only low earthworks that the grazing sheep have softened over nearly two thousand years. But these camps are among the most evocative traces of the Roman army in Britain, because they mark where soldiers actually slept and worked while the frontier was being built and garrisoned.
Read the complete Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp, about halfway. Next is back through Eight Roman inscriptions in the Roman quar.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Eight Roman inscriptions in the Roman quar write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Eight Roman inscriptions in the Roman quar sits at 139 km, about halfway. Next is back through Burgh by Sands Roman fort.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Burgh by Sands Roman fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Burgh by Sands Roman fort comes up about 157 km into the recorded legs. Next is Wolsty South tower 13b.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Wolsty South tower 13b write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Wolsty South tower 13b closes the day.
Wolsty South tower 13b → Burgh by Sands Roman fort is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Burgh by Sands Roman fort → Eight Roman inscriptions in the Roman quar is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Eight Roman inscriptions in the Roman quar → Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Brown Dikes Roman temporary camp → back through Eight Roman inscriptions in the Roman quar is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Eight Roman inscriptions in the Roman quar → back through Burgh by Sands Roman fort is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Burgh by Sands Roman fort → Wolsty South tower 13b is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.