Turret 11B (Great Hill) was one of the regularly spaced stone watch towers built along Hadrian's Wall in the AD 122–128 construction phase, positioned between Milecastles 11 (Wall Houses) and 12 (Heddon-on-the-Wall) in the eastern sector of the Wall in what is now Northumberland. Like other turrets in this sector, it would have been a small two-storey structure, roughly 4–5 m square internally, projecting from the south face of the Wall and providing observation, signalling, and shelter for a small detachment of auxiliary soldiers drawn from the nearby forts or milecastles.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
As part of the integrated turret–milecastle–fort system, 11B contributed to surveillance and control of movement along the Wall's eastern approaches to Newcastle (Pons Aelius), in a stretch where the Wall ran close to the Military Way and the Vallum. It has no individual historical prominence, but forms part of the densely monitored eastern corridor between the Tyne and the higher ground around Heddon.
Very little is recorded for Turret 11B specifically; unlike the well-preserved Brunton (26B) or Black Carts (29A) turrets further west, the eastern turrets in this stretch were largely obliterated by post-medieval agriculture, quarrying, and the construction of the Military Road (B6318) in the 1750s, which sits directly on the Wall here. No
Turret 11B (Great Hill) was one of the regularly spaced stone watch towers built along Hadrian's Wall in the AD 122–128 construction phase, positioned between Milecastles 11 (Wall Houses) and 12 (Heddon-on-the-Wall) in the eastern sector of the Wall in what is now Northumberland. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a watch tower site from the Roman period in Britain.
Turret 11B (Great Hill) is classified as a Roman watch tower — 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 11A (Heddon Hall) (0.5 km), Milecastle 12 (Heddon) (0.5 km), Milecastle 11 (Throckley Bank Top) (0.9 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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