Turret 37A was a small stone-built watch tower on Hadrian's Wall, positioned at Rapishaw Gap, a natural dip in the Whin Sill ridge between Milecastles 37 (Housesteads) and 38 (Hotbank). Like other turrets on this central sector, it was built in the early 120s AD as part of the original Hadrianic scheme and consisted of a single ground-floor chamber roughly 4 metres square, recessed into the curtain wall, originally rising to perhaps two storeys to provide observation over the gap.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
Its location at Rapishaw Gap gave it particular tactical importance, as the gap is one of the few easy north-south crossing points along this stretch of the Whin Sill escarpment and would have required closer surveillance than turrets on the higher crags. It functioned within the standard signalling and observation chain between the Housesteads and Hotbank garrisons.
Turret 37A was a small stone-built watch tower on Hadrian's Wall, positioned at Rapishaw Gap, a natural dip in the Whin Sill ridge between Milecastles 37 (Housesteads) and 38 (Hotbank). It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a watch tower site from the Roman period in Britain.
Turret 37A (Rapishaw Gap) 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 37 (Housesteads) (0.5 km), Turret 37B (Hotbank Crag) (0.5 km), Turret 36B (Housesteads) (0.9 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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