Turret 14A was one of the standard interval watch towers along Hadrian's Wall, situated between Milecastle 14 and Milecastle 15 in the central-eastern sector west of Newcastle. Like other Wall turrets, it was constructed in the 120s AD under Hadrian and would have remained in use, with intermittent occupation, into the later 2nd or 3rd century before being abandoned along with much of the Wall's interval system.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
As a small two-storey signal and observation post manned by a handful of soldiers detached from the nearest auxiliary garrison, the turret formed part of the integrated surveillance network designed to monitor movement across the frontier and to relay signals between milecastles and forts. It is not individually distinguished in the historical record, being one of the many "lost" turrets in the eastern stretch where the Wall has been heavily obscured by later urban and agricultural development.
Very little is known archaeologically about this specific turret; the eastern sector of the Wall around Eppies Hill has been extensively built over, and no significant published excavation of Turret 14A is on record. Its position is inferred from the regular spacing pattern of the Wall's turret system rather than from upstanding remains.
Turret 14A was one of the standard interval watch towers along Hadrian's Wall, situated between Milecastle 14 and Milecastle 15 in the central-eastern sector west of Newcastle. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a watch tower site from the Roman period in Britain.
Turret 14A (Eppies 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 14B (0.4 km), Milecastle 14 (March Burn) (0.6 km), Milecastle 15 (Whitchester) (0.9 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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