Milecastle 72 (Fauld Farm) was a small fortlet on the western end of Hadrian's Wall, situated on the Cumbrian coastal plain near Burgh-by-Sands, between Milecastles 71 and 73. Built in the 120s AD as part of Hadrian's frontier system, it would have housed a small garrison of perhaps 8–32 auxiliary soldiers and controlled a gateway through the Wall, remaining in use intermittently until the late 4th century along with the rest of the Wall system.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
As one of the westernmost milecastles before the Wall's terminus at Bowness-on-Solway, it formed part of the frontier's surveillance and movement-control apparatus across the low-lying Solway approaches, where the Wall was built in turf before later reconstruction in stone. Its role was primarily to monitor crossings of the Solway estuary, an area vulnerable to incursion at low tide.
Very little is known archaeologically about Milecastle 72; its precise location is not securely established and no significant excavation has been published, its position being inferred largely from the regular spacing of milecastles along the Wall. Like other turf-sector milecastles in this stretch, it presumably began as a turf-and-timber structure, but no upstanding remains survive above ground.
Milecastle 72 (Fauld Farm) was a small fortlet on the western end of Hadrian's Wall, situated on the Cumbrian coastal plain near Burgh-by-Sands, between Milecastles 71 and 73. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a fortlet site from the Roman period in Britain.
Milecastle 72 (Fauld Farm) 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 Aballava (0.4 km), Turret 71B (0.5 km), Turret 72A (0.5 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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