Turret 65B was a small stone watch tower on Hadrian's Wall, the second turret west of Milecastle 65 (Tower Tye), located in the central-western sector of the Wall between Stanwix and Burgh-by-Sands. Like other Wall turrets, it was constructed in the 120s CE under Hadrian and would have been manned by detachments from auxiliary units, likely those based at the nearby fort of Stanwix (Uxelodunum), the headquarters of the ala Petriana. It would have served, with intermittent occupation, until the later 4th century, though many turrets in this sector were abandoned or demolished earlier, in the late 2nd or 3rd century.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
The turret formed part of the standard Hadrianic system of paired turrets between milecastles, providing observation, signalling, and patrol cover along the Wall's curtain. Its position in the Solway plain west of Carlisle placed it in a flat, low-lying landscape where visibility and signalling between posts was particularly important given the absence of the dramatic terrain found further east.
Very little is recorded about Turret 65B specifically; in this western sector the Wall and its turrets are largely buried beneath later agricultural land and modern roads, and the site has not been the subject of significant published excavation. Its existence and approximate position are inferred from the regular Hadrianic spacing of turrets rather than from substantial surviving structural remains.
Turret 65B was a small stone watch tower on Hadrian's Wall, the second turret west of Milecastle 65 (Tower Tye), located in the central-western sector of the Wall between Stanwix and Burgh-by-Sands. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a watch tower site from the Roman period in Britain.
Turret 65B 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 Uxelodu(nu)m (0.1 km), Milecastle 66 (Stanwix Bank) (0.6 km), Milecastle 65 (Tarraby) (1 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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