Turret 33A (Coesike) was one of the small recessed watch towers built into the curtain of Hadrian's Wall, situated between Milecastle 33 (Shield-on-the-Wall) and Milecastle 34 (Grindon), in the central sector east of Housesteads. Constructed in the 120s AD as part of the original Wall scheme, it would have been a roughly 4–5 m square stone tower projecting south from the Wall, manned by a small detachment from the nearest auxiliary garrison and used for observation and signalling along this stretch of the Whin Sill ridge.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
Coesike is notable as one of the turrets demonstrably abandoned and demolished during the Antonine or later 2nd-century reorganisation of the Wall, when many turrets in the central sector were taken down to the level of the Wall and their recesses walled up — evidence that the original dense pattern of surveillance was judged unnecessary once the frontier system had matured.
Turret 33A was excavated by Charles Daniels in 1970, revealing the standard recessed plan, two structural phases, and clear evidence of deliberate slighting in the late 2nd century, with the recess blocked and the interior backfilled. Finds were modest — typical 2nd-century coarse pottery and structural debris — consistent with a short occupation terminating before the Wall's later phases.
Turret 33A (Coesike) was one of the small recessed watch towers built into the curtain of Hadrian's Wall, situated between Milecastle 33 (Shield-on-the-Wall) and Milecastle 34 (Grindon), in the central sector east of Housesteads. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a watch tower site from the Roman period in Britain.
Turret 33A 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 33 (Shield-on-the-Wall) (0.5 km), Turret 33B (Coesike) (0.5 km), Milecastle 34 (Grindon) (0.9 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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