Turret 79A (Stanwix Bank) was one of the standard small watch towers built along Hadrian's Wall as part of the original wall scheme of the AD 120s, positioned between Milecastles 79 and 80 in the western sector approaching the wall's terminus at Bowness-on-Solway. Like other turrets on this stretch, it would have been a roughly 4–5 m square stone tower projecting from the rear of the curtain wall (here built in turf and later replaced in stone), manned by a small detachment from the nearest auxiliary garrison, probably the ala Petriana at Stanwix.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
As part of the westernmost run of the Wall overlooking the Solway Firth, Turret 79A formed part of the surveillance system monitoring the tidal flats and fords that offered the easiest crossing points into the province — a frontier zone where the threat was less from massed incursion than from small-scale raiding across the estuary.
Very little is recorded specifically for Turret 79A; the turrets in this western, originally Turf Wall sector are generally poorly preserved due to later stone-wall rebuilding, agricultural levelling and coastal erosion, and the site has not been the subject of any substantial published excavation. Its existence is largely inferred from the regular spacing of the Wall's turret system rather than from upstanding remains.
Turret 79A (Stanwix Bank) was one of the standard small watch towers built along Hadrian's Wall as part of the original wall scheme of the AD 120s, positioned between Milecastles 79 and 80 in the western sector approaching the wall's terminus at Bowness-on-Solway. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a watch tower site from the Roman period in Britain.
Turret 79A 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 79 (Solway House) (0.4 km), Turret 79B (Jeffrey Croft) (0.4 km), Knockcross Roman temporary camp at Grey Havens (0.5 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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