Turret 52B (Bankshead) was a small stone watch tower on Hadrian's Wall, one of the regularly spaced interval turrets built into the Wall curtain in the 120s AD between Milecastle 52 (Bankshead) and Milecastle 53 (Banks Burn), in the sector west of Birdoswald. Like other turrets on this stretch, it would have stood roughly 4.5–5m square internally, with a ground-floor doorway opening onto the Wall walkway and probably an upper observation storey, manned by a small detachment drawn from the nearest fort garrison.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
Its function was surveillance and signalling along the curtain, controlling movement across the frontier and maintaining visual communication with the flanking milecastles and the fort at Birdoswald. It is not individually distinguished but forms part of the unbroken turret system that defines this western, originally Turf Wall, sector.
This turret lies in the stretch where the Wall was rebuilt in stone over the earlier Turf Wall, and very little is published specifically on 52B; unlike its better-known neighbours (Pike Hill, Banks East/52A), it has not been the subject of significant modern excavation and its remains are not consolidated for display. Its position is known from the regular Wall-mile spacing rather than from substantial visible structural evidence.
Turret 52B (Bankshead) was a small stone watch tower on Hadrian's Wall, one of the regularly spaced interval turrets built into the Wall curtain in the 120s AD between Milecastle 52 (Bankshead) and Milecastle 53 (Banks Burn), in the sector west of Birdoswald. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a watch tower site from the Roman period in Britain.
Turret 52B 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 52A (Banks East) (0.5 km), Milecastle 53 (Banks Burn) (0.5 km), Pike Hill Signal Tower (0.7 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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