Thorny Hill Signal Station
About
Set on the western edge of a natural hillock, the Thorny Hill tower's ditch enclosed a sub-circular platform about 13 by 11 meters, with a narrow causewayed entrance facing south toward the Roman road. Local tradition also knows the site as Mayfield, Midgate, or Clathymore, reflecting the patchwork of farms that grew up around it over the centuries. It went out of use in 87 CE along with the rest of the Gask Ridge chain, decades 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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