Milecastle 1 was the easternmost milecastle of Hadrian's Wall, situated near the eastern terminus of the curtain at Wallsend (Segedunum), close to the bank of the Stott's Pow stream where it ran toward the Tyne. Like other milecastles on the Wall, it would have been built in the 120s AD under Hadrian and occupied, with intervals of refurbishment, into the later 4th century. As a small fortlet, it would have housed a garrison of perhaps 8–32 auxiliary soldiers tasked with controlling movement through its gateway.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
Its position at the very eastern end of the Wall, between the fort of Segedunum and the Tyne, made it a key node controlling traffic where the frontier met the river — likely a point of routine civilian transit and customs supervision rather than a heavily contested military post. It marks the formal start of the milecastle sequence numbered westward along the Wall.
The site has never been positively located on the ground; it lies under modern Wallsend development and its position is inferred from the standard Roman spacing of milecastles westward from Segedunum and from the line of the Wall (the "Branch Wall") extending to the Tyne. No excavated remains, inscriptions, or structural details specific to Milecastle 1 have been recovered, and its existence remains essentially a reconstruction from the Wall's known metrology.
Milecastle 1 was the easternmost milecastle of Hadrian's Wall, situated near the eastern terminus of the curtain at Wallsend (Segedunum), close to the bank of the Stott's Pow stream where it ran toward the Tyne. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a fortlet site from the Roman period in Britain.
Milecastle 1 (Stott's Pow) is classified as a Roman fortlet — a military site in the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer. Roman Britain's archaeology encompasses thousands of sites ranging from legionary fortresses and marching camps to villas, temples and towns.
Several Roman sites lie within a short distance, including Turret 1A (0.2 km), Turret 0B (St. Francis) (0.5 km), Turret 1B (0.9 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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