Turret 28A (Grindon West) is one of the regularly spaced stone watch towers built into the curtain of Hadrian's Wall, positioned between Milecastle 28 (Walwick) and Milecastle 29 (Tower Tye) in the central sector east of the North Tyne. Constructed in the 120s AD as part of the original Hadrianic scheme, it would have stood roughly a third of a Roman mile west of Milecastle 28 and functioned as an observation and signalling post manned by a small detachment drawn from the garrison of the nearest fort, probably Chesters (Cilurnum).
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
Like its paired turret 28B, it formed part of the integrated surveillance system controlling movement across the frontier in the Tyne–North Tyne corridor, with sightlines linking it to neighbouring turrets and milecastles. It is not individually notable but contributes to understanding the standard turret spacing and construction in this central, lower-lying stretch of the Wall.
Turret 28A is poorly recorded compared with better-preserved examples further west; its position is known from the regular Wall spacing and antiquarian observation rather than from significant modern excavation, and no substantial finds assemblage is published for it. As with other turrets in this sector, it is likely to have been a stone tower roughly 4–4.5 m square internally, abandoned or reduced in use by the later 2nd or earlier 3rd century when many turrets along the
Turret 28A (Grindon West) is one of the regularly spaced stone watch towers built into the curtain of Hadrian's Wall, positioned between Milecastle 28 (Walwick) and Milecastle 29 (Tower Tye) in the central sector east of the North Tyne. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a watch tower site from the Roman period in Britain.
Turret 28A 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 28B (0.5 km), Milecastle 28 (Walwick) (0.5 km), Milecastle 29 (Tower Tye) (1 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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