Barcombe Hill Signal Station
About
Set on the western end of an Iron Age hillfort above Vindolanda, this signal post let the Stanegate garrison relay messages by direct line of sight to Housesteads and Vindolanda, predating Hadrian's Wall by decades. Excavations in 1939 and again in 1950 uncovered a limestone-flagged rampart base 4.2 meters wide, cut directly into the older Iron Age earthwork it reused. The 1950 dig also found a small oven in the hillfort's northeast corner along with quantities of first-century Roman pottery and charcoal, evidence of a manned watch rather than a bare tower. In 117 CE the post remained active, part of the frontier's still-forming signal network, years before the Wall replaced it with a fixed line of stone.
What happened here
A small stone tower with a timber top, sited so that it can see the next one along the line. Half a dozen men live in it. They watch the ground in front, and they watch the tower on either side. A signal — fire and smoke at night, something visible by day — passes a warning down the chain far faster than a rider can, though it can only carry a message that was agreed in advance. The rest of the time it is a lookout post on a road, a river crossing or a frontier line, and the work is boredom punctuated by inspections. Supplies come up from the fort behind. Towers on a frontier stand within sight of each other for hundreds of miles.
Sources
Nearby
Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →