Talk:Milecastle

Merge proposal

As I am about to embark on expanding the Milecastle article, detailing each Milecastle on the Wall, I will take the opportunity to merge the Milecastle gateways article. Does anyone have any objections? MortimerCat 00:54, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. --Dweller 10:09, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I cannot see any valid reason for not doing so. Look forward to reading the final results --DazB

General comments

The present tense is inappropriate. A milecastle WAS a fortified structure. None of them are now, they just exist as remains, A milecastle didn't have a duty, but it had a role. There were not 81 of them, there were 80, numbered from No.1 in Wallsend to No. 80 at Bowness-on-Solway, though there has been a suggestion (Hill, 2001) that an additional milecastle existed at the eastern end of the wall in Wallsend (which would have to be numbered 0). However, there is no physical evidence for this.

There are 81 milecastle forts along Hadrian's Wall, supplemented by 160 manned turrets

If I read this correctly, the turrets are still manned. There is only evidence for 158 turrets, and no evidence that they were all manned, though it's generally assumed that they were, at least part of the time. The name generally used in historical and archaeological reference works is simply milecastlle. There's no concensus for the number of forts along the line of the wall. It may be 16, or it may be 17.

Citation No.2 is to a website article. Citations should be to reference works, not articles like the one cited, which in any case contains inaccuracies, and appears to come to several different conclusions to the sources IT cites. I'll rewrite the first paragraph to reflect all this, and remove citation No.2. Rambler24 (talk) 19:35, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Update - I've rewritten the first section to generalise the topic, corrected the statistics, added more constructional details, and mentioned the Cumbrian Coast defensive system, which also included milecastles. Unneeded or doubtful references have been removed. The Gateways section cites no reference. I've added a tag and I'll look for some. Rambler24 (talk) 22:18, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Individual milecastle article expansion

I've made a start expending the Milecastle stubs (zero to three so far). Comments on the format would be welcomed sooner rather than later (that way I don't have to go back over so many to make changes. General questions:

• What about an infobox?
• Could we do with a separate article(s) for Turrets/Towers? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sam.roebuck (talk • contribs) 14:21, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Milecastle. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://archive.is/20130415134438/http://www.pastscape.org/hob.aspx?hob_id=9039 to http://www.pastscape.org/hob.aspx?hob_id=9039

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 12:25, 31 December 2017 (UTC)