Milecastles and Turrets

Milecastles
and Turrets

Along the whole length of Hadrian's Wall small fortlets were attatched to the south. These so called milescastles were spaced in regular intervalls of one Roman mile. Between the milecastles two watchtowers known as turrets were built every 1/3 Roman mile. The milecastles provided the gateways through the frontier with double gates in the front and the rear. Hadrian's Wall was not a closed barrier, traffic was possible although the more important cause for the numerous gateways (80 milecastles) was probably the easy access for the Roman army to territories beyond the frontier line. The average dimension of milecastles along the stone wall was 18 x 15 m (60 x 50 ft), on the turf wall they appear to be 21 x 18 m (70 x 60 ft) and they were built of turf too. They usually contained one barrack block and thus were capable of accommodating 8-12 soldiers. Only two are known with two barrack blocks (i.e. Poltross Burn at the head of this page, this milecastle was built by the legio Valeria Victrix) providing enough space for 32 men. Each fortlet also had a tower to close the chain of turrets. The turrets were about 6 m square and their wall was about 1,8 m thick. The suggested height is 9 m to gain a decisive advantage compared to the wall itself. The turrets were built of stone even along the turf wall.


Milecastle 42 - Cawfields	Gates of Cawfields Milecastle	Banks East Turret
Especially the milecastles provide the possibility to decide which of the three legions (II augusta, XX Valeria Victrix, VI Victrix) built a certain stretch of wall. Each legion had its own building style so that fortlets have sometimes a longer or shorter north-south axis in comparison to its east-west axis. Together with the different gateways we receice three different types of milecastles and each of them can be related to one of the three legions. A similar possibility is given by the turrets by comparing the positions of doorways and the varying width of their walls. - legio II augusta: short-axis milecastles with two responding arches at the gateways - legio XX Valeria Victrix: long-axis milecastles with two pairs of responding arches at the gateways - legio VI Victrix: long-axis milecastles with just one responding arch at the gateways Together with the inscriptions found on several milecastles it is possible to assign each part of the Wall to a certain legion. Thus this provides us with valuable informations about the building of Hadrian's Wall.		Milecastle 37 (Housesteads-West): short-axis with two pairs of responding arches, thus built by the legio II augusta
		Milecastle 9 (Chapel House): long-axis milecastle with one responding arch, thus built by the legio VI Victrix
Milecastle 39: Castle Nick - built by legio VI Victrix