housesteads14 Hadrian's Wall To protect his province from the North the Emperor Trajan decided to use the Stanegate, the road built during the governorship of Agricola, as a frontier. The Stanegate already had forts at one day marching intervals at Corbridge, Chesterholm, Nether Denton and Carlisle. Under Trajan's scheme first were to be built at Newbrough, Carvroan and Old Church Brampton with fortlets at Haltwhistle Burn and Throp, and possibly lookout posts at Walltown Crags, Pike Hill, Mains Rigg, Barcombe and Birdoswald. When the next Emperor Hadrian visited Britain in AD 122 the found that 'the Britons could not be kept under Roman control'. His solution was to strengthen Trajan's frontier by building a wall from coast to coast of stone in the East and turf in the West. It was to be 76 Roman miles (70 modern miles) long and placed North of the Stanegate with a milecastle every Roman mile and two turrets in between the milecastles. Outpost forts were to be built at Bewcastle, Birrens and Netherby to protect the tribesmen cut off from the rest of the province by the building of the Wall. Work began in AD 123 and the Wall was partially built when the decision was made to construct the forts on the Wall itself. This resulted in Turret 36B having to be demolished to make way for the fort at Houseteads. When completed the Wall was 80 Roman miles (73 1/2 modern miles) long with forts from Wallsend to Bowness-on-Solway. A military road was built at a later date running from milecastle to milecastle to provide better communications.