NORTH YORKSHIRE

Aldborough

SE4066

Bainbridge

Virosidum?

SD9390

Flavian fort or fortlet;  
succeeded by a fort, 1.1 ha built circa 100 AD;  
the site was unoccupied 140 -160 AD; rebuilt circa 200 AD;  
garrisoned by Cohors VI Nerviorum (3rd - 4th century)

Earthwork remains of a Roman fort and fort annexe, the fort was probably Flavian in date, the annexe, possibly containing a bath house, Severan. The fort was first excavated by Kirk and Collingwood in 1925-6, then by Droop for Liverpool University in 1928-9 and 1931. Under lease to Leeds University, further excavations were directed by Wade in 1950-3 and by Hartley annually from 1956 to 1969. Almost no stonework is visible within the fort, although the fort platform survives to a maximum height of 3.90m. A single ditch surrounds the N, E and S sides, while on the W side there are the intermittent remains of five ditches. The scarps in the interior of the fort are likely to be almost exclusively the result of 20th century excavations. The fort annexe is not as well preserved as the fort itself, but is still clearly visible. It is of slightly irregular shape and measures 99m N-S by 73m E-W at its greatest, between the crests of the ramparts. Traces of a single ditch survive on the E side, where there is also probably a single entrance. The interior is marked by low amorphous scarps. The circular enclosure noted by Authority 8 is probably the remains of a post-medieval sheep shelter. The cultivation terraces described by the same Authority have been recorded as a separate monument, SD 99 SW 247. The west ditches of the fort are overlain by two probable medieval pillow mounds, SD 99 SW 246. Scheduled.  

Boroughbridge

Civitas capital

Fort 43 - 410  
Town defences 43 - 410

The civitas capital of Isurium Brigantum; possibly originally associated with a fort, the town defences were built in the mid/late 2nd century and mid-3rd century. Scheduled

Brompton on Swale.  

SE2299

Stores base? on the opposite bank of the Swale from Catterick  

Bootham Stray

SE5954

Two temporary camps now visible (18th Century reports are of eight camps), 0.9 ha and 1.1 ha, training site for the legions based at York? Roman temporary camp, partially surviving as an earthwork. The slight remains of two camps have been recorded about 2.5 km N of the fortress at York (Eburacum). If the reports of 18th-century antiquaries are accepted, a total of up to eight camps may once have existed in the general vicinity. The surviving camps are situated on level, low-lying ground, at about 14 m above OD, and are cut by field boundaries consisting of old hedges and deep drainage ditches; they have also been severely reduced by ploughing and mutilated by the construction of some outlying buildings and ancillary works of the former second World War airfield to the W. The greater part of Camp 1 containing the only sections of the defences that are now surveyable as earthworks, falls within Bootham Stray, a medieval common; Camp 2 and the N portion of Camp 1 lie within what were until the early 18th century `half-year lands', that is ground that was arable for half the year and pasture for half. This land use has led to the different levels of survival of the various elements of the earthworks. The defences of Camp 1 survive at best as a broad bank, 6 m to 7 m wide and up to 0.3 m high, although the average height is only 0.1 m. No trace of a ditch can be seen. Overall, the camp measures about 150 m from N to S by 85 m transversely, enclosing an area of about 1 ha (2.4 acres). The earthworks of a gate survive on the S, with an internal clavicula, but air photographs suggest the former presence of similar gates on the E and N. A fourth gate may be postulated on the W.

Roman temporary camp partially surviving as an earthwork The slight remains of two camps have been recorded about 2.5 km N of the fortress at York (Eburacum). If the reports of 18th-century antiquaries are accepted, a total of up to eight camps may once have existed in the general vicinity. The surviving camps are situated on level, low-lying ground, at about 14 m above OD, and are cut by field boundaries consisting of old hedges and deep drainage ditches; they have also been severely reduced by ploughing and mutilated by the construction of some outlying buildings and ancillary works of the former Second World War airfield to the W. The greater part of Camp 1, containing the only sections of the defences that are now surveyable as earthworks, falls within Bootham Stray, a medieval common; Camp 2 and the N portion of Camp 1 lie within what were until the early 18th century 'half-year lands', that is ground that was arable for half the year and pasture for half . This land use has led to the different levels of survival of the various elements of the earthworks. The earthworks of Camp 2, which lies less than 200 m W of its neighbour, have been almost entirely levelled by ploughing and by mole-drains set at 4 m intervals. Faint indications survive, usually consisting of little more than the outer scarp of the bank; this has a maximum width of about 7 m and is no more than 0.1 m high. There is no trace of a ditch. Ground swellings and slight shadows on air photographs suggest that the gates on the NE, SW and SE were defended by internal claviculae. The same was also probably true of the NW side, the bank of which, probably mutilated during airfield construction, is marked only by a slight scarp, 30 m long, towards its W end. Internally, the camp thus seems to have measured about 107 m from NE to SW by about 81 m transversely and would thus have enclosed an area of 0.9 ha (2.1 acres).

Breckenbrough

SE3783

Marching camp  

Brompton on Swale

SE 29

Roman bridge and fort, possible town defences.

A late 1st century settlement grew up along Dere Street, RR8c. In the second century the site was probably occupied by a fortified bridgehead. A walled settlement developed in the 4th century and was occupied into the 5th c and later.

Crop-marks including an enclosure appended to a track-way of Prehistoric or Roman date and the corner of a possible Roman temporary camp.  

Brough with St. Giles parish

SE 29

Roman fort, and town defences, also a temporary fort.

A Roman walled town, built on site of a Roman Flavian fort, part of a Roman wall is still visible. Anglo-Saxon brooches were also found.

Buttercram with Bossall

SE 75

Roman temporary camp.
Cropmarks of a rectangular enclosure interpreted as a Roman temporary camp

A possible fort also.

Carkin Moor

NZ1608

Fort, 1.0 ha

Earthwork remains of a Roman fort surviving as a rectangular platform South-West of Carkin Moor Farm. The fort measures 150m north east - south west and 132m north west - south east. It is bisected by the A66 and only survives as an earthwork north of the road, the fort is visible as a crop-mark south of the A66. Scheduled Monument.

Castle Howard

Catterick

Cataractonium

SE2299  
Flavian? fort. The site was re-occupied from the mid 2nd - 4th century.

SE2399

Marching camp  

Cawthorn

SE7890

Two forts one late 1st century?  
Temporary camp

A complex site of possibly three forts (see plan), the marching camp measures 310 ft by 850 ft, or 95m by 260m, enclosing 2.1 ha or 5¼ acres and 6 2/3 acres (VCH).

The western camp measures, according to the VCH, 450 ft by 480 ft, enclosing 3¾ acres. The ditches and ramparts are uniform in height, with a double ditch system separated for on two sides by a berm 20 feet wide. 

The middle earthwork is coffin shaped, and appears earlier than the other two.  It encloses 5½ acres (VCH) with three entrances on the east side each covered by a crescent shaped section of rampart.  This is plan form is unique the only one of its type in Yorkshire.

Conistone with Kilnsey in Craven

SD 96

Cropton

SE 79

Forts

Roman temporary camp and two forts, one with an annexe, surviving as earthworks. Earthwork remains of a Roman temporary camp of irregular plan. The earthworks consist of four major elements. A camp, C, of unusual polygonal design, is partly overlain by a slightly later fort, D, which is probably datable to the late 1st century (SE 79 SE 45). To the E of the camp are two structures which have often been classified as camps; on balance, however, the more westerly of the two is best regarded as a fort, A, which was subsequently provided with an annexe on its E side, thus forming a much larger defended area, B. The whole camp is very well preserved: internally it measures 260 m from N to S by a maximum of 95 m transversely, and encloses an area of 2.1 ha (5.2 acres). The defences consist of a bank which stands 0.8 m high internally and up to 1.2 m high above the bottom of a slightly ragged external ditch up to 0.8 m deep. The depth of the ditch is emphasised by the unusual provision of a broad, low counter-scarp bank, about 3 m across and 0.3 m high. Richmond's excavations revealed that the inner bank was made of turf; there was no berm between the bank and the ditch which was found to be about 1 m deep and which apparently had a narrow basal channel. The loose material upcast from the ditch formed the counterscarp bank. Each of the three gates, regularly spaced along the E side, is defended by an external clavicula; the dimensions of the bank are unchanged around the arc of the clavicula, although the ditch is now nowhere more than 0.3 m deep. In each case the gap in the line of the turf bank is about 8.5 m wide; this is further restricted to about 5 m by the clavicula itself, which is an arc of more than 45 degrees.

Egton near Scarborough

Fort

Elslack

Olenacum?

SD9249

Flavian fort, 1.3 ha that was occupied until c 120 AD and again around 150 AD.  The original Flavian fort was square in plan with sides measuring 345 feet inside the ramparts; the clay rampart built on stone foundations was 16 - 18 feet wide.  A double ditch system was separated from the ramparts by a berm 2 - 3 feet wide.  The inner ditch was crossed by a gateway on each side.   

Filey

TA1281

Late 4th century coastal watch tower.

One of a chain of coastal signal stations and watch towers, this was sited on Carr Nase, also known as Filey Brigg.  The partially stone built tower was erected in the late 4^th century, and was first rediscovered in 1857 after a cliff fall.  Recent archaeology has shown that the structure measured about 50m across with a central tower 14m square of which had substantial clay and stone foundations.  The tower itself was surrounded by a small walled courtyard, which was entered through a gate on the west side. Beyond the gate there was a defensive ditch that presumably ran across the headland, but did not enclose the whole site.  It has not been possible to date the construction of the Filey signal station with any accuracy within the late Roman period, but coins from the courtyard suggest that refuse tipping began after c 385.  The station was likely manned by local militia units.

See also : Wilson, P., Aspects of the Yorkshire signal stations in Maxfield and Dobson (eds) Roman Frontier Studies 1989, Exeter, 1991, pp124­147  

Ganton

SE 97

Temporary camp  
Supposed site of a Roman camp visible in the mid-19th century, nothing now visible.

Goldsborough

NZ8315

Late 4th century coastal watch tower. One of a group that includes Filey, Ravenscar, Scarborough and Huntcliffe.

Wilson, P., Aspects of the Yorkshire signal stations in Maxfield and Dobson (eds) Roman Frontier Studies 1989, Exeter, 1991, pp124­147

Grewelthorpe Carlesmoor Camp

Healam Bridge

SE3283

Fort? Flavian?  

Hovingham

SE 67

Temporary camp

Roman temporary camp visible as a cropmark, except for the north-west corner which survives as an earthwork. A camp of irregular but almost square plan, enclosing about 4.9 ha (12.1 acres), was identified in 1976 on the N side of the Howardian Hills. It lies on the level top of Diana Hill, on the edge of the limestone escarpment, a little over 80 m above OD; on its W side the ground falls steeply away to the Wath Beck. To the N the slope is less severe, and on the S side there is a relatively gentle gradient. There are good views in all directions, particularly northwards across the Vale of Pickering. The camps at Cawthorn lie 19 km to the NE and the fort at Malton 12 km to the ESE and the course of a probable Roman road linking the two passes some 500 m W of the site. Almost the entire perimeter of the camp has been levelled by ploughing, the exception being its NW corner, which lies within Wath Wood. Here, a low scarp, up to 0.6 m high, may represent a residual rampart. Surmounted by small trees, the scarp probably once formed part of a hedge line beside a track, shown on OS 1:2500 Yorkshire sheet CVI SW for 1892. Most of the remainder of the camp's perimeter is known, except for the SW corner and much of the adjacent part of the S side. The discontinuous line of the E ditch bows outwards markedly, so that the approximate dimensions are about 230 m N-S by between 208 and 217 m transversely. The apparent absence of any diagnostic features and the lack of definition of the rather fine cropmarks make it impossible to be sure which interruptions in the ditches should be accepted as gates. The N side, which occupies a false crest where the hill slope begins to steepen, appears to have had an entrance close to its central point. The position of a probable gate in the W ditch is to the S of centre and may be matched by another almost directly opposite. If so, the camp may have faced S.

Huntington near York

SE 65

Temporary camp

A Roman camp visible as soil-marks on aerial photographs. Parts of four-sides of a rectangular enclosure defined by a bank and ditch are visible including one rounded corner and a possible clavicula entrance. 

Kellington near Selby

SE 52  
Fort

The buried remains of a Roman fort on a sandstone promontory on the south side of the River Aire flood plain. The fort was identified from aerial photographs of crop-marks taken in the summer of 1991 by the RCHME. In the following winter the West Yorkshire Archaeological Service conducted a geophysical survey of the monument, which revealed further details of the site. The remains of the fort are believed to be deeply buried, and there are no upstanding earthworks. The fort is orientated to face the north east and measures 154 metres north east to south west and 138 metres wide externally, 128 metres by 101 metres internally. The remains of the double ditched defences are straight sided in plan with curved corners. There are central breaks on both the northeast and south western sides for gateways (the porta praetoria and porta decumana respectively) as well as just north east, and thus forward of the centre line on the remaining two sides (for the porta principalis sinistra and dextra). The geophysical survey also identified a number of internal features including the street (via the principalis) linking the two principal gates, an area in the southern corner considered to be the fort's workshops as well as a number of other ditches and pits. Scheduled.

Lease Rigg

NZ8104

Flavian fort, 1.1 ha; abandoned circa 120 AD  

Long Preston

SD8358

Fort?

Knaresborough

SE 35

Fort

Site of rectangular defences around Knaresborough, no longer visible. Supposed site of a Roman fort; probably the remains of the Medieval town ditch.

Malham

SD9165

Marching camp, 8.1 ha (20 acres), Flavian, a large sub-rectangular enclosure measuring 850 ft by 1020 ft, or 260m by 310m 

There appears to be no links with Roman roads.

Earthwork remains of a Roman temporary camp are situated on relatively dry rough grassland, on the W side of a fairly level saddle between High Stony Bank and Low Stony Bank, at about 385 m above OD. Although there are good views from the SW around to the W and N, it is not in a particularly strong defensive position. Overlooked by higher ground from the NE, and from the E where the crest of the saddle rises gently to about 400 m above OD, the site is also dominated by the elevated limestone pavement of Low Stony Bank, only about 140 m from the S edge of the camp. On the W the deep and narrow valley of the Gordale Beck offers some good natural protection, supplemented less effectively on the N by the shallow gully of an unnamed tributary. The defences of the camp, which faces N, consist of a rampart with an outer ditch enclosing an area of nearly 8.1 ha (20 acres). There are four gates, each with an internal clavicula. The remains are in relatively good condition; such damage as there has been to the defences has resulted from the traffic along the green track of Mastiles Lane which almost bisects the camp immediately N of the E to W wall. Evidently there were problems with the original setting out of the camp which is not a perfect rectangle: the N side is 8 m shorter than the S, and the E side is 4 m longer than the W. The NE corner is a right angle but the E rampart veers outwards by up to 6m at the SE corner, the angle of which is thus slightly acute. The E end of the S side also curves inwards off the general line of this side. These misalignments are probably due to the gently undulating topography. The four corners of the camp are not all inter-visible, either from each other or from a central point.

Malton

Derventio

SE7971

Early Flavian vexillation fortress? circa 8.9 ha;  
followed by a late Flavian fort, 3.4 h; held until circa 120 AD and again from circa 160 AD;

Reconstructed in the 3rd century;  
Garrisoned by Ala Gallorum Picentiana (late 2nd century) 
and Numerus Supervenientium Petueriensium (late 4th century)

Newsham with Breckenbrough

SE 38

Temporary camp

Newton Kyme

Praesidivm?

SE4545

Two Flavian forts, circa 1.3 ha and 4.0 ha

Two Roman forts situated on a raised river terrace south of the River Wharfe, which have been identified through aerial photography. The larger fort is rectangular in shape, measuring 230 metres east to west by 312 metres north to south and extends over an area of about 7 hectares. This fort overlies a smaller, earlier fort, which measures 200 metres from east to west. The outer defensive ditches and rampart and internal details of a network of roads, buildings and other features within the fort are visible as cropmarks. Excavation in 1908 and 1956 showed that the first fort was constructed of earth and timber enclosed by a turf and clay rampart. The area was cleared in AD 290 and a new fort constructed with stone walls up to 3 metres thick, within a ditch 15 metres wide which remained in use throughout the fourth century. The forts were part of a network of Roman military installations throughout the north of England to support the Roman presence. To the south of the fort is a section of Roman road, which has an extensive vicus (see SE 44 NE 32) associated with it. Scheduled.

A Roman Camp, which lies 250 metres to the west of the Roman forts (SE 44 NE 6) at Newton Kyme. Only the north east corner of the camp and 150 metres of the north side and 250 metres of the east side are visible on aerial photographs. The camp may represent the first Roman occupation of the site. Scheduled.

A Roman camp which is overlain by the Roman fort at Newton Kyme (SE 44 NE 6). Only 200 metres of the south side and 380 metres of the east side of this camp are visible on aerial photographs. The camp may represent the first Roman occupation of the site. Scheduled.

Pickering

SE 79

Fort

Roman fort surviving as an earthwork.

Pickhill with Roxby

SE 38

Fort

Recent geophysical work has uncovered the site of a Roman fort of 2 hectares and its vicus.

Ravenscar

NZ9801

Late 4th century coastal watch tower. One of a group that includes Filey, Scarborough, Goldsborough and Huntcliffe.

Wilson, P., Aspects of the Yorkshire signal stations in Maxfield and Dobson (eds) Roman Frontier Studies 1989, Exeter, 1991, pp124­147  

Roall

SE5625

1.3 ha Flavian fort  

Roecliffe

SE3866

Early? Flavian fort, 2.5 ha

Britannia XXV (1994) pp265 - 6

The site of a Roman fort and adjacent settlement. It is located on a raised river terrace, south of a bend of the River Ure to the west of Boroughbridge. The monument was identified by geophysical survey and the presence and nature of the remains were confirmed by a series of excavations adjacent to the monument. The geophysical survey revealed three sides of a rectangular, double ditched enclosure with rounded corners characteristic of Roman forts. A road was revealed extending east-west to the north of the fort which was connected to it by a short spur-road. Also revealed by the survey were defensive outworks beyond the road and settlement which take the form of concentric and overlapping lengths of ditch, a characteristic additional defence associated with first century AD military sites. The settlement lies to the east and north of the fort, where a series of tracks, ditches and buildings were identified. The survey results were tested by excavations carried out along the east edge of the monument. These produced detailed evidence of sections of the road and the outwork defences and some timber buildings from the external settlement. Pits were also excavated which produced evidence of industrial activity, particularly metal working. The excavations also showed traces of earlier Roman occupation near to the river. This area was prone to flooding and the fort was thus constructed on the raised ground further back from the river. The excavations produced pottery, coins and artefacts including body armour fittings which date the site to the first century AD. The fort was established in the late first century AD to guard a crossing point of the river. It was probably built shortly after AD 71 when Petillius Cerealis began to push north into the territory of the native Brigantes. The fort only had a short life span, being abandoned in AD 85. Scheduled.

Scarborough

TA0589

Late 4th century coastal watch tower. One of a group that includes Filey, Ravenscar, Goldsborough and Huntcliffe.

Wilson, P., Aspects of the Yorkshire signal stations in Maxfield and Dobson (eds) Roman Frontier Studies 1989, Exeter, 1991, pp124­147  

Skelton

SE 55

Temporary camp

Smeaton near Selby

SE 51

Fortlet

Undated enclosure visible as a crop-mark; suggested Roman fortlet.

Swinden (in Craven)

SD 85

Temporary camp

Tadcaster

Calcaria

SE4843

Fort?  

Wath

SE6774

Marching camp, 4.9 ha

Crop marks on the summit of Diana Hill show a square plan site, similar to others.  Discovered by aerial photography by Prof. St. Joseph in 1976, the visible earthworks measure 695 ft by 755 ft, or 212m by 230m.  

Wensley

SE0889

A Flavian fort, 1.2 ha