Kirkhill Roman Signal Station
About
One of the best-preserved watchtowers on the Gask Ridge, Kirkhill was excavated in 1909 and found to hold a circular platform about 14 meters across surrounded by a ditch and outer bank. It formed part of the relay chain running the length of the ridge road, letting the garrison signal along Rome's earliest fortified land frontier. The post was abandoned in 87 CE when the army withdrew from Scotland, thirty years before this snapshot.
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
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