82km Hadrian's Cycleway Once Brewed to South Shields
Hadrian's Wall
Rome’s Greatest Frontier
Ride overview
Open Moorland to Tyneside
It is pretty much an exhilarating downhill all the way from the moors to the sea, making for an easy day’s pedalling. You pedal through Hexham, the prettiest town on the route, a market town dominated by its abbey, inside of which is the most chilling - from a Briton’s point of view - monument of the whole ride. Then it’s a case of drifting delightfully down the Tyne valley to Newcastle. The city positively thrums with energy, especially noticeable after a couple of days on the high moorland. The riding under the Tyne’s collection of bridges, past former industrial buildings, is one of the most marvellous urban routes in the land. The day - and the route - finishes with a ferry ride across the Tyne to the final Roman fort, Arbeia, perched on a cliff high above the North Sea.
Ride Practicalities
START/FINISH: Once Brewed DISTANCE: 82km TOTAL ASCENT: 607m TERRAIN AND SURFACES: Traffic-free cycle lanes, riverside paths, and quiet lanes. A gravel/touring/hybrid bike with 28mm tyres or more is ideal RECOMMENDED CAFÈS/PUBS: Hexam: Bunter’s Coffee Shop, Newcastle: Dobson and Parnell, Tynemouth: Riley’s Fish Shack, STAY: Twice Brewed: Twice Brewed Inn, YHA, Tynemouth: The Grand Hotel, The Castle Inn NEARBY MAINLINE TRAIN SERVICES: Newcastle PLACES TO VISIT; Chesters Fort, ( a couple of miles off the route) Corbridge: Corbridge Roman Town, Wallsend: Segedunum Fort & Museum, South Shields: Arbeia Roman Fort. LINKS TO OTHER RIDES: Coast and Castles, National Cycle Network Route 1
Ride Notes
Open Moorland to Tyneside
If the lack of time has forced you to forego Day 4’s walk, you could still fit in a quick visit to Vindolanda. The extensive fort and the museum are ‘trip essentials’.
Hexham Abbey
The 10km descent from the high moors towards the River Tyne is one of the great pleasures of the whole journey. Once off the high country, the countryside becomes familiarly lush again. The grass is greener, hedgerows replace stone walls, the country just looks richer. Inside Hexham’s abbey, you come face to face with the brutal and oppressive regime that was the 400 year Roman occupation of Britain. The tombstone of Flavinus depicts him riding his horse with a torque around his neck which indicates his high rank. The British ‘barbarian’ by contrast is being trampled under his horse, naked. After all the soft-sell of the Roman occupation by the museums along the Wall, you finally come face to face with with what life was like for the native inhabitants.
Flavinus tramples upon a naked Briton
The route continues onto Cordbridge, another fort and beyond that is the River Tyne cycle path. It’s a gentle traffic-free ride. Willows, alders and birch line the route, the hills are behind you, the sea beckons.
Poorly designed social housing, mountains of litter and a segregated cycle path beside a busy road, make for an unappealing entrance into Newcastle. However, such disappointments are short lived and once in the city centre, the urban vistas of Newcastle’s River Tyne open up before you; bridges, factories and grand edifices. The well-signed River Tyne Cycle Path takes you alongside the river to Wallsend, followed by a ferry ride across the Tyne.
River Tyne, Newcastle
With the re-created entrance towers, barracks and officer’s house, Arbeia gives you a good sense of what the fort looked like. The museum dwells on the nationalities of the soldiers; mainly Hungarians, Romanians, Germans and Belgians and what life was like for them so far from home. From time to time, men from Spain, Syria and North Africa were brought into keep us pesky Britons quiet.
The fort is your final encounter with the Roman occupying forces. Having completed the coast to coast route, you’ll have completed one of England’s most fabulous rides.
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