Turret 2B (Wallsend) was one of the small stone watch towers built at roughly third-of-a-mile intervals along Hadrian's Wall, positioned between Milecastles 2 and 3 near the eastern terminus of the Wall at Segedunum (Wallsend). Constructed in the 120s AD under Hadrian, it would have been a two-storey rectangular tower integrated into the curtain wall, manned by a small detachment drawn from the auxiliary garrison at Segedunum, and likely occupied intermittently into the later 2nd or 3rd century.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
As one of the easternmost turrets on the Wall, 2B formed part of the close surveillance system covering the approaches to the Tyne estuary and the eastern flank of the frontier, where the Wall ran down to the river. Its role was observational and signalling, linking Segedunum with the milecastle and turret chain westward toward Newcastle (Pons Aelius).
The turret lies beneath the dense urban fabric of modern Wallsend/Byker and has not been excavated in any substantive published form; its position is inferred from the standard Hadrianic spacing and from the projected line of the Wall traced in nearby investigations. No structural remains, inscriptions, or finds can be confidently attributed to this specific turret.
Turret 2B (Wallsend) was one of the small stone watch towers built at roughly third-of-a-mile intervals along Hadrian's Wall, positioned between Milecastles 2 and 3 near the eastern terminus of the Wall at Segedunum (Wallsend). It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a watch tower site from the Roman period in Britain.
Turret 2B 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 Milecastle 3 (Ouseburn) (0.5 km), Turret 2A (0.5 km), Milecastle 2 (Walker) (0.8 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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