Die Bricke Wochenschau

First post of the year. Happy New Year! I'm proud to show you finally my finished project of the Hadrian's Wall milecastle. Milecastles were little fortlets for 20-30 soldiers inside the Hadrian's Wall. There was one each Roman mile (1480 meters). That's the reason of the name. After the expansion years of the emperor Trajan it came Hadrian with a defensive mindset and he reinforced the limes (frontiers) of the Roman empire. The idea he had for Britannia was to build the wall we are talking about. In 6 years most of it was already built. The wall itself was 117km long and went from Wallsend on the river Tyne in the east to Bowness-on-Solway in the west. It consisted of 80-84 milecastles like the one I built and 158 watch towers and 16 forts that had up to 1000 soldiers destined inside. It had a defensive purpose obviously but it was intended too to separate the northern tribes like the Picts or Caledonians who were problematic from the Roman province (Britannia). Once they were clearly separated it was easier to control the traffic of people livestock and goods between the north and south of the island. And if you can control it you can levy taxes. The construction of the wall began in the year 122 AD. 20 years later the emperor Antonine tried to establish a new wall 100 kilometers to the north (the Antonine Wall) but around 20 years later it was abandoned to never use it again. The Romans occupied Britannia until the early 400s and after they left the wall started it's decadence even some parts and forts remained used for some more decades (by native tribes I assume). Although many stones of the Hadrian's Wall were taken to build the sorrounding towns the ruins we have today are protected and let us understand very well how this defensive line was. Let's take a look at how was the wall organized.

Source: https://brilliantmaps.com/hadrians-wall-map/

Here we can see the different parts of the defenses. The stone wall was just the main part but there were more. There was a road that went behind the wall and communicated all the forts and towers. In the scheme below these different defenses can be seen.

Source: https://learnodo-newtonic.com/hadrians-wall-facts/schematic-section-of-hadrians-wall

Source: https://www.despertaferro-ediciones.com/revistas/numero/el-muro-de-adriano-imperio-romano-adrian-goldsworthy/

In the previous picture we can see an inllustration of the milecastle in the right and a tower in the left. Between every milecastle there were 2 towers like that one.

Now we will talk about my LEGO build itself. First of all you will notice my fortlet doesn't have a tower like the illustrations and recreations you can find at internet. This was due to 2 reasons: I had the bricks but not enough tiles to keep it looking like the rest of the built so it would have looked weird and seem like I finished the build unmotivated in a rush. Second one and also important is that I didn't know how to build it with a smooth transition in the inside walls. The fortlet should have been 2 studs wider on each side to be able to build a tower without it looking like all is piled up and very tight. When I realized about it I had done so much section of the wall that I thought it just wasn't worth it to rebuild it all. I really enjoyed building this (ancient/medieval fortresses have something special) so maybe one day when I own more bricks I build a longer section of the wall and I build a milecastle again. As I mentioned I love ancient and medieval fortresses and castles so for some time I wanted to build something like that. Romans is what I love the most to study about (with Napoleonic Wars and the World War II and the Nazis) and the Roman frontiers is what I find more interesting I would say. From a lone fort in the middle of the desert in the Middle East to the wood watchtowers between forests in Germania. Back when information was scarce and there were many myths and beliefs it must have been terrifying to be a sentinel in the Hadrian's Wall during the cold winter knowing many of the natives living in front of you hate you. The daily live of the soldiers there is something I find fasninating. Even for many of them it was just boring I guess I find amazing how advanced in time the Romans were for many things. About the build itself I saw I need to improve in the curved corners because I want them to look more symmetrical. Walls should have been a brick taller so the roofs were taller too and the horse isn't taller than the stables he must live in. Other than that I'm very happy with the build. It may look empty of minifigs but the front part wasn't big enough to fit properly a horse carrying a wagon with natives wanting to cross the border to trade as I thought at first when planning the build. I have chosen late empire soldiers because they are my favorites. Typical early empire ones look really cool too and I could have used like 10 of them but for once I wanted my build in an era were Romans struggled to survive. The soldiers represent Limitanei troops who were soldiers destined to garrison the Roman frontiers and stop the enemy while bigger and better trained and equipped troops (Comitatenses) came to face the enemy.

The picture that inspired the build and my original plan:

Source: https://www.meisterdrucke.ie/fine-art-prints/Philip-Corke/1208858/Winshields-Milecastle,-Hadrian%27s-Wall,-Northumberland.html

These milecastles had barracks for the soldiers stables for the horses and ovens to cook. 20-30 soldiers lived inside and it is believed they were the garrison of the sorrounding towers. And I think that was all I wanted to write. If you want to know more about the building process I posted 5 previous posts about the process and if you want to know more about the minifigs check this one: https://diebrickewochenschau.blogspot.com/2025/12/week-4-building-hadrians-wall-in-lego.html I hope the new year brings great stuff for everyone reading this and I can't wait to show you more of my LEGO ideas and projects. At the end of this post after all the pictures you will find a YouTube video of the build as always. I would appreciate it so much if you take a look at it specially this time because I'm testing a new format using a character to introduce the build in first person and it took more hours than usual to edit the video and I want to know your opinion about the result. See you guys and thank you for reading!

Internal structure

I'm happy with how the corners look like. Was kinda challenging

Welcome to the last update of the project before the final reveal! I'm really happy to write that this is the last update I post before I post the final result of my current project. I started it in mid September and it will be finished this week probably so I think this is the project I did that took the longest. Main reason is that I don't have much time sadly but well I will build less but I will try to build better! In the past couple of weeks I almost finished all the walls and started the final section of the MOC. The real Hadrian's Wall had a ditch in front of the main door and that is the only part I still have doubts about because I don't know how to build it to be honest. Because it's all covered with snow I guess it will help me and I can just represent that the ditch is partially covered by snow so that's nice. I don't know how many parts I have used so far but I bet it must be at least 7000. It is really heavy. As you can see in the first pictures the main gate has been reworked and it is smaller now than it was originally. I prefer it smaller and closer to the other one even it is a bit taller and wider. I really love how the mix of Light Bluish Gray Dark Tan and Dark Bluish Gray turned out. I'm really happy with how good it looks over the white bricks. I really like the contrast of the fortlet colors compared to the white of the base. In the YouTube video I will edit and post I will do a little timelapse using all these photos I posted over the weeks so the progress of the last months is seen in a minute or so. I think it will look cool. Can't wait to finally show you the build finished. Merry Christmas guys!