Turret 17B (Welton) was one of the regularly spaced stone watch towers built along Hadrian's Wall in the 120s AD, positioned between Milecastle 17 (Welton) and Milecastle 18 (East Wallhouses) in the central-eastern sector of the Wall. Like other turrets in this stretch, it would have been a small two-storey tower roughly 4–5 m square internally, projecting south from the curtain wall, garrisoned by a handful of soldiers detached from the nearest fort (probably Rudchester) and used for observation and signalling. It was likely occupied intermittently from the Hadrianic period until the later 2nd century, with many such turrets in this sector decommissioned and walled up around the end of the 2nd or early 3rd century.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
As part of the integrated frontier system of Wall, ditch, Vallum, and milecastles, Turret 17B contributed to surveillance of the gently rolling terrain north of the Tyne corridor and provided a relay point for visual signalling between manned posts. It is not individually notable, but forms part of the regular pattern of frontier infrastructure.
Very little has been published specifically on Turret 17B; its position is known from the standard turret spacing and from antiquarian and 20th-century Wall surveys (notably the work of the Collingwood Bruce *Handbook* tradition and subsequent re-survey), but it has not been the subject of major modern excavation
Turret 17B (Welton) was one of the regularly spaced stone watch towers built along Hadrian's Wall in the 120s AD, positioned between Milecastle 17 (Welton) and Milecastle 18 (East Wallhouses) in the central-eastern sector of the Wall. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a watch tower site from the Roman period in Britain.
Turret 17B 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 17A (Welton East) (0.5 km), Milecastle 18 (East Wallhouses) (0.5 km), Turret 18A (Wallhouses East) (1 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
Aubrey Research generates detailed historical reports for any location in Britain, incorporating Roman heritage, Domesday Book records, scheduled monument data, archaeological finds and much more. Enter a nearby address to begin.
Aubrey generates in-depth historical research for any address in Britain — drawing on Roman heritage, Domesday records, scheduled monument data, archaeological finds and medieval history to reveal the complete story of a landscape.
Research the area around Turret 17B