Milefortlet 1 (Biglands House) was a

milefortlet 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 Br ...

of the

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

Cumbrian Coast defences. These milefortlets and intervening stone

watchtowers A watchtower or guardtower (also spelt watch tower, guard tower) is a type of military/paramilitary or policiary tower used for guarding an area. Sometimes fortified, and armed with heavy weaponry, especially historically, the structures are ...

extended from the western end of

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 ...

, along the

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial county in North West England. It borders the Scottish council areas of Dumfries and Galloway and Scottish Borders to the north, Northumberland and County Durham to the east, North Yorkshire to the south-east, Lancash ...

n coast and were linked by a wooden palisade. They were contemporary with defensive structures on

. The remains of Milefortlet 1 survive as a slight earthwork.

Description

Milefortlet 1 is situated in a field beside

Biglands Biglands is a hamlet in Cumbria, England. It is located to the north of Gamelsby, and east of the River Wampool. It is not the location of Milefortlet 1, the first milefortlet to the west of Hadrian's Wall, which is located on the coast overloo ...

House in the

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

of Bowness.

Aerial photographs Aerial photography (or airborne imagery) is the taking of photographs from an aircraft or other airborne platforms. When taking motion pictures, it is also known as aerial videography. Platforms for aerial photography include fixed-wing airc ...

show a square platform about 50 metres wide surrounded by ditches. All that can be seen on the ground is a slight ridge defining the north side, and to a lesser extent, the west side.

Excavations

The

was trial-trenched in 1954 and 1974, and fully excavated in 1975. The excavations revealed a rectangular fort measuring 40 metres by 50 metres. The original defence was a turf rampart 7 metres wide surrounded by a v-shaped ditch. There were three distinct phases in the fort's history when each time it was demolished and rebuilt. The dating evidence suggests that the fort was occupied throughout most of the 2nd century.

Associated Towers

Each

had two associated towers, similar in construction to the

turrets 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 * ...

built along Hadrian's Wall. These towers 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 Milefortlet, and would probably have been manned by part of the nearest Milefortlet's garrison. The towers associated with Milefortlet 1 are known as Tower 1A () and Tower 1B (). The exact locations of these two towers are uncertain. There was a distinct green mound at the approximate location of Tower 1A, but it was removed with the shingle for road building in the 1960s.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Milefortlet 01 Milecastles of Hadrian's Wall Roman sites in Cumbria