Milecastle 80, also known as Solway House Milecastle, was the westernmost milecastle on Hadrian's Wall, situated at the terminus of the Wall on the Solway Firth at Bowness-on-Solway. It would have been a small fortlet of standard early second-century Hadrianic type, garrisoning perhaps 20–30 auxiliary soldiers and controlling movement at the very end of the linear frontier. Its function was largely superseded by the immediately adjacent fort of Maia (Bowness-on-Solway), one of the primary forts on the Wall.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
As the final milecastle on the Wall, MC 80 marked the formal western limit of the Hadrianic frontier system on land, though a chain of coastal milefortlets and towers continued southwards down the Cumbrian coast. Its placement so close to the fort at Maia makes it somewhat anomalous and reflects the rigid spacing of the milecastle scheme being maintained even where strategically redundant.
Very little survives or has been securely identified on the ground; the site lies beneath the modern village of Bowness-on-Solway, and no significant modern excavation has confirmed its precise location or plan. Its existence is inferred largely from the regular Wall-mile spacing system rather than from substantive structural evidence.
Milecastle 80, also known as Solway House Milecastle, was the westernmost milecastle on Hadrian's Wall, situated at the terminus of the Wall on the Solway Firth at Bowness-on-Solway. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a fortlet site from the Roman period in Britain.
Milecastle 80 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 Maia (0.1 km), Turret 79B (Jeffrey Croft) (0.6 km), Knockcross Roman temporary camp at Grey Havens (0.8 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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