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Introduction
This brief summary of the archaeology of the North
Pennines outlines developments in human society over the
past 10,000 years, illustrated by reference to fieldwork
projects undertaken by Altogether Archaeology (AA)
members. A much more detailed overview, containing
references to published reports and other sources, is
contained within Part 1 (Resource Assessment) of the North
Pennines Archaeological Research Framework
In addition,
much further information is contained with AA project
designs and project reports. All these documents are available in the
‘Reports’ section of the AA
website.
The North Pennines landscape holds clues
to the activities of people over the past 10,000 years,
extending back to the Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) when
the first bands of hunters wandered into the area after
the Ice Age. Until the advent of Altogether Archaeology,
relatively little archaeological research had been
undertaken here in comparison with other areas of northern
England, but recent work has demonstrated a previously
unrecognised wealth of archaeological remains, that
together form a rich and complex historic environment.
This recent work has taken place largely through two
initiatives: Altogether Archaeology, initially as an
HLF-funded project managed by the North Pennines AONB
Partnership and latterly as an independent archaeology group
(having a much wider remit than the North Pennine AONB
boundary), and the
Miner-Farmer project, a survey led by Historic England
that has revolutionised our understanding of the historic
environment of Alston Moor, including the Roman fort at
Whitley Castle and its environs, at the heart of the North
Pennines.
Thanks to this work, coupled with
earlier studies of some areas and the recent Lidar
Landscapes surveys of extensive areas including Weardale
and Teesdale, we are increasingly able to study the
complex archaeological heritage of the North Pennines as a
fascinating subject in its own right, rather than as a
relatively insignificant backwater of interest only to
those engaged in the study of adjacent lowlands. However,
we still only know a tiny bit of the story of the past
10,000 years; there are still numerous sites awaiting
investigation and countless secrets to be revealed!
Lidar landscape surveys of relevance to many periods:
1
Allen valleys & Hexhamshire (2015)
2 Teesdale, Weardale &
the Upper Derwent valley (2017)
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Extensive multi-period
archaeology site. Roman period native settlements and
field system, hut circle, bloomeries, lead smelting site
and charcoal pits immediately south east of East Force
Garth, which is ESE of Cow Green reservoir in upper
Teesdale.
The 3D Lidar model can be viewed here.
Image ©S Eastmead |
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Hunters and Gatherers
The
Mesolithic, c10,000 - 4,000BC
The first people to live
in the North Pennines after the end of the Ice Age, from about
12,000 years ago, were ‘hunters and gatherers. They lived a
nomadic lifestyle, moving around the landscape to exploit
available natural resources in a manner probably not greatly
different from that of many nineteenth-century Native American
communities. They have left few clues as to their presence in
the North Pennines other than their flint tools and weapons,
recovered from numerous places ranging from ploughed fields in
Weardale and Teesdale, to upland locations like Allendale
Common, and even at altitudes in the region of 800 metres OD
at Teeshead and on Dufton Fell.
One particularly
fascinating site is Staple Crag, not far downriver from High
Force in Upper Teesdale, where hundreds of small worked flints
have been recovered from the eroding riverbank, demonstrating
that a temporary campsite, probably visited for a few weeks
each year, existed here perhaps 8,000 years ago. The AA
excavation on the shore of Cow Green reservoir in Upper Teesdale was the
first ever excavation designed specifically to investigate a
Mesolithic site in the North Pennines.
Altogether
Archaeology projects especially relevant to the Mesolithic:
1
Cow Green Mesolithic settlement (July 2015 & July 2018). |
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2015 Excavation at Cow
Green Reservoir. Image ©S Eastmead |
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From the first farmers to the first
metalworkers
The Neolithic, Chalcolithic and early
Bronze Age (c4,000 – 1,500BC)
Between 6,000 years and
4,000 years ago, during the Neolithic (New Stone Age)
communities throughout the North Pennines gradually adopted
farming alongside long-established practices of hunting,
fishing and gathering. We have very little evidence of where
these people lived, but polished stone axes, beautiful
leaf-shaped flint arrowheads and other stone tools provide
evidence of Neolithic activity. The settlement pattern
throughout the Neolithic and into the early Bronze Age may
well have retained a degree of mobility from Mesolithic times,
with some places occupied only seasonally.
Neolithic
people built great communal monuments; the magnificent
Cumbrian stone circle of Long Meg and her Daughters, one of
the most important and enigmatic Neolithic sites of northern
England lies on the western fringes of the North Pennines in
the Eden Valley. Excavations here by AA suggest the stone
circle dates from about 3,100BC and was preceded by a great
earthwork enclosure several centuries earlier. On an
altogether more local scale, several little stone circles,
like the example at Lunehead, probably stood in late Neolithic/early Bronze Age times. A recently recognised ‘henge’ (a circular platform surrounded by circular
bank and ditch) near Garrigill, is another example of a local
late Neolithic or Chalcolithic monument. These local sites may
have played a similar role to parish churches in later times,
providing foci for ritual and possibly also for burial. The
enigmatic rock carvings known as ‘cup-and-ring marks’, of
which several survive most notably
in Upper Teesdale around Cotherstone and Eggleston, also date
from this period. One example, the Tortie Stone near
Hallbankgate, was excavated in 2011, but little information
was found as to its original date or function.
Metal
technology was introduced from about 2,400BC during the
Chalcolithic (copper age); the first metal objects were of
copper and gold, with bronze following soon after. AA members
made a spectacular discovery during their reinvestigation of a
burial mound at Kirkhaugh (Alston) originally excavated in
1935 – a very early gold hair-tress ornament that made a pair
with one found back in the original excavations, along with
several other important artifacts.
In 2010, Altogether
Archaeology volunteers excavated a mound on Appleby Golf
Course, thought to be a 2,000 years old Roman signal tower; it
turned out to be a 4,000 years old Bronze Age burial site,
containing several cremation burials. Many other burial cairns
are known from the North Pennines, but few have been excavated
in modern times.
Altogether Archaeology projects
especially relevant to the Neolithic, Chalcolithic and early
Bronze Age:
1 Tortie Stone, Hallbankgate (2011).
2
Brackenber (Appleby Golf Course) burial cairns (2011 & 2013).
3
Dryburn ‘henge’, Garrigill (2013).
4 Long Meg Stone
Circle survey and excavation (2013 & 2015).
5
Ravensheugh survey (2013).
6 Ravensheugh landscape
survey (2013).
7 Kirkhaugh cairn, Alston (2014). |
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'Long Meg and her
Daughters' Stone Circle. Image ©S Eastmead |
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Round houses and round cairns
The later Bronze Age and Iron Age (c1500BC – 100AD)
From the mid Bronze Age, from about 3,500 years ago, permanent
farmsteads of round houses and small fields appeared in the
North Pennines landscape. The first Bronze Age settlement ever
recognised in northern England, dating from about 1500BC, was
excavated in the 1970s at Bracken Rigg, Upper Teesdale, where
a large timber roundhouse stood within an irregular enclosure
of about 0.7 hectares. Further examples of Bronze Age
settlements have also been recognised. A good example can be
seen by the Hilton Beck, Scordale, where recent survey work
has recorded a complex of house platforms, field walls and
field clearance cairns extending over about 20 hectares.
Substantial cairnfields, such as at Crawley Edge above
Stanhope in Weardale where more than forty examples are
recorded, have been noted in a few places.
A very important
hoard of Bronze Age objects, dating from about 1000BC, was
made in the nineteenth century within Heathery Burn Cave,
Stanhope. This includes spearheads, axes, knives, tongs,
bracelets and cheek pieces from a horse harness, all of
bronze, together with jet rings and anklets and armlets of
gold. Most of the finds are now in the British Museum; the
cave has been destroyed by quarrying. Other comparable though
smaller hoards have been found in the North Pennines, mostly
from wet places such as bogs or ponds into which they were
probably deposited as votive offerings.
From about 800BC,
iron technology was introduced into the region, marking the
onset of the Iron Age, enabling the production of more
efficient tools and weapons. Settlement and agriculture
continued to expand gradually throughout the lower slopes of
the dales during the Iron Age and into Roman times. Two
settlements with roundhouses were excavated in the 1970s at
Forcegarth Pasture, Teesdale, dating from the first and second
centuries AD; finds included Roman and native pottery, quern
stones, spindle whorls, loom weights and evidence of smithing.
A farmstead of similar date has recently been excavated on
Bollihope Common, Weardale, and AA investigated one at
Gilderdale Burn, within sight of the Roman fort at Epiacum
(Alston). Several dozen further such settlements, sometimes
with extensive field systems, have been recorded over recent
years using lidar in many other parts of the North Pennines.
It is impossible to tell from surface evidence alone whether
these date from the Iron Age or Roman periods; some may have
spanned both and even been occupied through into post-Roman
times. Some may have been the homesteads of Roman period
‘miner-farmers’, who worked in the lead and silver industries
as well as tending their own farms, just as people did here in
post-medieval times one and a half millennia later.
Altogether Archaeology projects especially relevant to
later Bronze Age, Iron Age and Roman times:
1
Ravensheugh landscape survey (2013).
2 Sewingshields
survey (2014).
3 Gilderdale (Epiacum) settlement
excavation (2014). |
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Gilderdale next
to Epiacum Roman Fort. Image ©S Eastmead |
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Iron-Age round
house at Gilderdale. Image ©S Eastmead |
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Roman
(c10-410AD)
Towards
the end of the first century AD, following the Roman invasion,
a network of Roman roads, studded with forts and marching
camps, was constructed to enable troops to pass unhindered
throughout northern England. The uplands we now referred to as
the North Pennines were effectively enclosed by such roads,
including the Stanegate (and Hadrian’s Wall) to the north,
Dere Street to the east, and Stainmore to the south. The
Maiden Way ran between the forts at Kirkby Thore and Carvoran
(on the Stanegate) passing close by Alston where the fort of
Epiacum (Whitley Castle) was constructed, presumably to
oversee lead and silver mining in the region. Recent
fieldwork, in particular a detailed field survey by English
Heritage, has added greatly to our understanding of Epiacum,
now widely recognised as one of Britain’s best-preserved Roman
forts.
Signs of
Roman military activity elsewhere in the North Pennines are
few and far between. Two third-century altars from Weardale,
dedicated to Silvanus (a woodland god often associated with
hunting) suggest that many areas retained a woodland cover and
were perhaps reserved for elite hunting expeditions. One of
the most intriguing questions about the Roman period in the
North Pennines, which demands much further study, relates to
the ways in which the Roman military interacted with ‘native’
populations. As noted above, some Iron Age roundhouse
settlements were probably occupied into Roman times, and
possibly beyond, while others may have been founded and
abandoned during the twelve or so generations of the Roman
occupation.
Altogether Archaeology projects especially relevant to Roman
military archaeology:
1 Epiacum molehill survey
(2010 - 2014).
2 Maiden Way (Epiacum) Roman
road excavation (2011).
3 Kirkby Thore geophysics
(2013).
4 Hadrian’s Wall milecastles
geophysics (2014 & 2015).
5 Hexham Fell Roman road
(2016). |
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Hexham Fell Roman road
lidar image. Roman road in-between annotations 1 and 2.
Image ©S Eastmead |
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Anglo-Saxons and Vikings
The early medieval period (c.410 – 1066).
We currently
have very little evidence for activity in the North Pennines
between the end of the Roman administration in the early fifth
century and the Norman Conquest of 1066. During the seventh
and eighth centuries, the North Pennines lay within the great
Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria but seems never to have
been anything other than a peripheral zone. In 883, much of
the land between the Tyne and the Tees was granted by King Guthred to the Community of St Cuthbert; thus, it was owned
and managed by the ecclesiastical authorities in an early
version of what would become County Durham.
Four
fascinating settlement sites dating from the late eighth
century have been partially excavated at Simy Folds on Holwick
Fell (Upper Teesdale). These consist of rectangular buildings
and small, enclosed yards: one of them produced evidence for
iron smelting and smithing. Place-name evidence suggests that
northern and eastern parts of the North Pennines were
dominated by Anglo-Saxon communities, while Norse (Viking)
influence was much greater to the south and west, in Teesdale
and the Eden Valley.
Some present-day villages, and
churches, certainly have origins in the Anglo-Saxon period,
but next to nothing is known of their early history. The
discovery by Altogether Archaeology of fragments of an eighth-century cross
at Frosterley, Weardale, was a spectacular discovery and
suggests that many other villages may have similarly early
origins.
Altogether Archaeology projects
especially relevant to the Early Medieval period:
1
St Botolph’s Chapel, Frosterley (2013 & 2014).
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Frosterley: large fragment of an
8thC Anglo-Saxon cross. Many other fragments were found. |
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Frosterley:
lovely carved head that still remains rather mysterious as to
its origins. Image ©S Eastmead |
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Medieval
c1066 -
1603
After 1066, England was divided up
amongst William the Conqueror’s loyal followers, many of whom
built castles to protect their property. In the North
Pennines, transport and communications were still very much
based on the Roman road network, and some important Norman
castles, of which Brough and Bowes are good examples, were
built on the sites of Roman forts. Other medieval castles were
constructed at numerous places in the North
Pennines.
During the three centuries preceding the Union of the Crowns
in 1603, the region was constantly threatened with
cross-border reiving associated with Anglo-Scottish border
conflict; linked to this, in about 1600, several bastles
(thick-walled defensible farmhouses with living accommodation
at first-floor level over a byre) were built in the Allen
valleys and on Alston Moor.
In
medieval times, all the land owned by the Community of St
Cuthbert came under the jurisdiction of the immensely powerful
Prince Bishops of Durham. Upper Weardale was maintained as a
vast hunting forest, subject to special forest law rather than
common law. Between 1250 and 1300, Stanhope deer park was set
up within the forest, along with some 30 new vaccaries
(seasonally occupied, tenanted cattle ranches). Westgate
Castle, recently investigated by Altogether Archaeology
volunteers, was built to function as the Bishop’s hunting
lodge and the administration centre for the vast Weardale
Estate, which generated much income through lead mining as
well as agriculture. Several of the thirteenth-century
vaccaries grew into hamlets and villages, some of which still
survive today. Other great medieval forests in the North
Pennines included those of Teesdale, Geltsdale, Gilderdale,
Milburn, Lune and Stainmore. Many
other deer parks existed, for example
at Wolsingham, Waskerley, Marwood (near Barnard Castle) and
at Thorngarth in Lunedale. The Prior of Durham maintained a grange
at Muggleswick, near Castleside, with attached park; today the
ruins of Muggleswick Grange are amongst the most spectacular
in the North Pennines, and recent Altogether Archaeology
fieldwork here has demonstrated that many associated remains
still survive below ground.
Medieval
villages consisted of rectangular houses clustered round a
green or, more typically in the upper dales, set out along a
road, each house having a long field known as a ‘toft’ behind
it. Beyond the village were communal ‘ridge-and-furrow’ fields
and hay meadows, and beyond these, communal grazing land and
woodland.
The upland pastures were occupied
seasonally by herdsmen who moved from the villages with their
livestock to the uplands in spring and living in crude shelters known as
‘shielings’ through the summer months before returning with their
beasts the following autumn. The beasts would then be
over-wintered in the lowland fields, being fed largely on hay
harvested from the village hay meadows. Recent survey work by
Altogether Archaeology volunteers has demonstrated the
complexity of the medieval landscape at Holwick, Upper
Teesdale, where the remains of several settlements have been
recorded amongst extensive relict field systems.
Altogether Archaeology projects
especially relevant to the Medieval period:
1 Holwick survey (2011)
2 Westgate Castle (2011).
3 Muggleswick Grange
(2009-2011& 2015).
4 Bradley Green settlement
survey (2015).
5 Well House settlement
excavation (2017 - 2019). |
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Trench 3: Cruck
House at the Well Head settlement, Holwick, Teesdale. Image ©S
Eastmead |
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A ‘Miner-Farmer’ landscape
Post-medieval times c.1603-1900
From medieval times, the North Pennines became one of
Britain’s most important lead mining regions. Mining was on a
relatively small scale until the mid-eighteenth century, but
from this time until the late nineteenth century much of the
area was dominated by lead mining and the landscape was
transformed. Levels were driven miles underground to exploit
the lead veins, and the ground surface became studded with
mine complexes, dressing floors and smelt mills. The hills
were criss-crossed by leats providing water power to various
sites, flues taking noxious gasses away from the smelt mills
to chimneys high in the hills, and tracks and railways
providing access to all the different sites.
Although
much is known about the local lead industry, there is still
much work to be done to record the remains of individual sites
and to better understand the lives of communities associated
with the lead industry. The potential for such work is well
demonstrated by three recent Altogether Archaeology projects:
at Dukesfield Smelt Mill near Hexham, where various features
associated with the well-known ‘Dukesfield Arches’ were
excavated; at Killhope, where original timber machinery was
found intact and well preserved within the floor of the buddle
house; and at Nenthead, where important survey was done to
record old watercourses throughout the complex (water power
was essential here, as it was at other lead industry sites,
but now the water channels are no longer maintained the water
flows out of control, causing much erosion of historic
features).
Many lead miners lived in small
farmsteads scattered throughout the dales, working their
shifts in the mines and also growing produce to support their
families. Limekilns were constructed to produce quicklime,
used on the fields to improve the fertility of the acid soils
and as lime mortar for the construction of buildings. Today’s
distinctive landscape of scattered homesteads (most with a
single building that originally combined cottage, byre and
hayloft) set within a patchwork of stone-walled fields,
generally referred to today as the ‘miner-farmer landscape’,
dates essentially from the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century
heyday of the North Pennine lead industry, when at least a
quarter of all Britain’s lead came from the region. Huge
quantities of quarried stone were used to construct hundreds
of miles of dry stone walls throughout the North Pennines
during the enclosure movement of the eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries, as previously communal pasture land was
divided into stone-walled fields and allocated to individual
landowners.
Many mining families lived in
villages developed by the mining companies such as Nenthead,
Garrigill, Allenheads and
Carrshield, or in larger settlements, such as
Middleton-in-Teesdale, Stanhope, Alston
and Allendale, that survived from medieval times and contained
the ancient parish churches. Lead mining families throughout
the region tended to be Methodists rather than Anglicans, and
numerous Methodist chapels were built from the mid-eighteenth
century, both within villages and at isolated roadside
locations for dispersed communities. The lead mining companies
supported several new schools during the nineteenth century in
Teesdale, Weardale and Allendale, alongside numerous
institutes and reading rooms.
North
Pennine industries received a great boost during the
mid-nineteenth century with the introduction of the railways,
and the road network was also much improved. However, in more
remote areas pack ponies continued to tread well-worn tracks
to get ores to the nearest road or railway.
Although
lead was the dominant industry, it was far from the only one.
Iron was mined and worked on a local scale from medieval
times, and from the mid-nineteenth century on an industrial
scale at Tow Law and Stanhope Dene. Elsewhere, limestone,
sandstone, whinstone and coal have all been worked on a large
scale, and from the late 19th century the development of
fluorspar, zinc, barytes and witherite mining helped to
offset, albeit only to a small extent, the worst effects of
the decline in lead mining.
Following the decline of
the lead industry, the 20th century saw population levels
decline throughout much of the North Pennines, with village
shops, chapels, schools and pubs becoming redundant, sometimes
being redeveloped for domestic use. Many isolated
smallholdings in the Dales lie abandoned, while others have
been redeveloped as holiday homes.
Altogether Archaeology projects
especially relevant to the post-medieval period:
1 Holwick survey (2011).
2 Shildon Little Engine
House, Blanchland (2011 & 2013).
3 Dukesfield Arches (2012)
4 Killhope Buddlehouse survey
and excavation (2012 & 2013).
5 Holymire Bastle (Epiacum)
survey (2014).
6 Nenthead watercourses
survey and excavation (2014).
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Dukesfield
Arches: Excavation plan trench 4. |
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Summary
From the
hunters and gatherers of prehistory to the miner-farmers of
the nineteenth century, communities have continually left
their mark on the historic environment of the North Pennines.
Properly managed, this historic environment has much to offer
the local economy, as well as being of great social and
spiritual value to local people and visitors alike. It also
offers huge potential for further research, as demonstrated by
the results of numerous recent Altogether Archaeology
projects. Using the results of the recently produced Research
Framework for the North Pennines, the Altogether Archaeology
Group looks forward to working with appropriate partners to
further improve our understanding of this fascinating yet
still under-studied area. |
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View AA Reports |
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Author: Paul
Frodsham
Published by: Altogether Archaeology
January 2019 |
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Copyright:
See link in the webpage footer. |
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