Milecastle 43 (Great Chesters) was a

milecastle A milecastle was a small fort (fortlet), a rectangular fortification built during the period of the Roman Empire. They were placed at intervals of approximately one Roman mile along several major frontiers, for example Hadrian's Wall in Great Bri ...

Hadrian's Wall Hadrian's Wall ( la, Vallum Aelium), also known as the Roman Wall, Picts' Wall, or ''Vallum Hadriani'' in Latin, is a former defensive fortification of the Roman province of Britannia, begun in AD 122 in the reign of the Emperor Hadrian. R ...

(). It was obliterated when the fort at Great Chesters (''

Aesica Aesica (with the modern name of Great Chesters) was a Roman fort, one and a half miles north of the small town of Haltwhistle in Northumberland, England. It was the ninth fort on Hadrian's Wall, between Vercovicium (Housesteads) to the east and ...

'') was built.

Description

Milecastle 43 was situated at Great Chesters, and was destroyed when the

fort was built.

Excavations

The foundations were discovered during an excavation in 1939, and were found beneath the fort wall and rampart between the north gate and north-west angle of Aesica.MILECASTLE 43
Pastscape, retrieved 3 December 2013 The excavations showed that the milecastle had a short axis with a Type I gateway. There are no visible remains.

Associated turrets

Each milecastle on Hadrian's Wall had two associated

turret Turret may refer to: * Turret (architecture), a small tower that projects above the wall of a building * Gun turret, a mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon * Objective turret, an indexable holder of multiple lenses in an optical microscope * Mi ...

structures. These turrets were positioned approximately one-third and two-thirds of a

Roman mile The mile, sometimes the international mile or statute mile to distinguish it from other miles, is a British imperial unit and United States customary unit of distance; both are based on the older English unit of length equal to 5,280 Engli ...

to the west of the Milecastle, and would probably have been manned by part of the milecastle's garrison. The turrets associated with Milecastle 43 are known as Turret 43A and Turret 43B.

Turret 43A

Turret 43A (Cockmount Hill) () was located by exploratory excavation in 1912.TURRET 43A
Pastscape, retrieved 3 December 2013 The site is overlain by turf-covered spoil from the Wall, and no remains of the turret can be seen.

Turret 43B

Turret 43B (Allolee East) () was also located by exploratory excavation in 1912.TURRET 43B
Pastscape, retrieved 3 December 2013 There are no visible remains.

Public access

The

Hadrian's Wall Path Hadrian's Wall Path is a long-distance footpath in the north of England, which became the 15th National Trail in 2003. It runs for , from Wallsend on the east coast of England to Bowness-on-Solway on the west coast. For most of its length it ...

passes through the remains of Aesica fort close to the location of the milecastle. The sites of both turrets are accessible via the Hadrian's Wall Path.

References

{{Milecastles 43