Milecastle 50 (High House) was a milecastle on

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

().

Description

Milecastle 50 is west of Birdoswald fort.MILECASTLE 50
Pastscape, retrieved 4 December 2013 It lies 1391 metres west of Milecastle 49 and 1501 metres east of Milecastle 51. Very little can be seen on the ground other than a ploughed-down earth platform.

Excavations

The milecastle was excavated in 1911. Excavation showed that it measures 18.3 metres east to west by 23.2 metres north to south. It is built with

narrow gauge A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge (distance between the rails) narrower than . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with Minimum railw ...

defensive walls, which are bonded into the Narrow Wall

curtain A curtain is a piece of cloth or other material intended to block or obscure light, air drafts, or (in the case of a shower curtain) water. Curtains are often hung on the inside of a building's windows to block the passage of light. For instan ...

of Hadrian's Wall on either side. It has Type III gateways. The stone milecastle replaced its predecessor, Milecastle 50TW (High House) on the Turf Wall, some 200 metres to the south ().MILECASTLE 50 (TW)
Pastscape, retrieved 4 December 2013 It is the only Turf Wall milecastle without a Stone Wall successor on it. Milecastle 50TW was excavated by F. G. Simpson and I. A. Richmond in 1934. It had

turf Sod is the upper layer of turf that is harvested for transplanting. Turf consists of a variable thickness of a soil medium that supports a community of turfgrasses. In British and Australian English, sod is more commonly known as ''turf'', ...

defensive walls, a timber north tower, and a fragment of a timber construction

inscription Epigraphy () is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the wr ...

was recovered recording its construction under

Aulus Platorius Nepos Aulus Platorius Nepos was a Roman senator who held a number of appointments in the imperial service, including the governorship of Britain. He was suffect consul succeeding the ''consul posterior'' Publius Dasumius Rusticus as the colleague of th ...

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 * Optical microscope#Objective turret (revolver or revolving nose piece), Objective turre ...

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 length; both are based on the older English unit of length equal to 5,280 English ...

to the west of the Milecastle, and would probably have been manned by part of the milecastle's garrison. The turrets associated with Milecastle 50 are known as Turret 50A and Turret 50B.

Turret 50A

Turret 50A (High House) () was excavated in 1911.TURRET 50A
Pastscape, retrieved 4 December 2013 The north half of the turret is buried beneath the road, and the south half survives as a slight earthwork at the edge of the adjoining field. It replaced the earlier turf wall turret (50A TW; ) which was dismantled when the stone wall was built.TURRET 50A (TW)
Pastscape, retrieved 4 December 2013

Turret 50B

Turret 50B (Appletree) () was also excavated in 1911.TURRET 50B
Pastscape, retrieved 4 December 2013 There are no surface remains visible, but a distinct rise in the south wall of the road marks the point in which it is carried over the south wall of the turret. It replaced the earlier turf wall turret (50B TW; ) which was dismantled when the stone wall was built.TURRET 50B (TW)
Pastscape, retrieved 4 December 2013

References

External links

* {{Milecastles 50 Roman sites in Cumbria