Moss Side Signal Station
About
Antiquarian David Christison excavated this tower in the nineteenth century and found four postholes marking its square timber frame, along with an unusual inner rampart that survived even after ploughing had already destroyed the outer ditch and bank. It sat among the closely spaced watch-posts of the Gask Ridge, each keeping the next in sight along Rome's earliest fortified frontier. Like its neighbors, it was abandoned in 87 CE, decades before this snapshot, when the legions withdrew south.
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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