This is a multi-period upland site on Knott Hill in the North Pennines fringe (likely County Durham/North Yorkshire borders, around the Stainmore–Teesdale uplands), comprising a native farmstead occupied broadly during the Roman period (probably 1st–4th centuries AD), an associated prehistoric carved rock (cup-and-ring or cup-marked stone, likely Neolithic/Early Bronze Age), and an iron smelting site. The settlement would have been a small enclosed or unenclosed farmstead of the type common to the Brigantian uplands, with stock and arable subsistence supplemented by iron production.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
The combination of habitation and iron smelting points to a rural community engaged in small-scale metal production, possibly supplying local markets or the military networks running through the northern frontier zone via the Stainmore corridor and Dere Street. The juxtaposition of prehistoric rock art with a later farmstead also illustrates the long continuity of landscape use typical of the Pennine fringes.
Little has been formally published on this specific site; it is known largely from surface survey identifying earthwork remains of a native settlement, slag and bloomery debris indicating iron smelting, and a decorated rock outcrop. No substantive excavation results are recorded, and dating rests on morphological parallels with comparable Brigantian farmsteads and bloomery sites in the region.
This is a multi-period upland site on Knott Hill in the North Pennines fringe (likely County Durham/North Yorkshire borders, around the Stainmore–Teesdale uplands), comprising a native farmstead occupied broadly during the Roman period (probably 1st–4th centuries AD), an associated prehistoric carved rock (cup-and-ring or cup-marked stone, likely Neolithic/Early Bronze Age), and an iron smelting site. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a settlement site from the Roman period in Britain.
A Roman period native settlement, prehistoric carved rock and an iron smelting site on Knott Hill, 750m south of Stone Cross is classified as a Roman settlement — a civilian site in the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer. Roman Britain's archaeology encompasses thousands of sites ranging from legionary fortresses and marching camps to villas, temples and towns.
Several Roman sites lie within a short distance, including Greta Bridge (7.3 km), Lavatris (7.4 km), Roman aqueduct, prehistoric field systems, cairnfield, enclosure and round cairn on Ravock (9 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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Research the area around A Roman period native settlement, prehistoric carved rock and an iron smelting site on Knott Hill, 750m south of Stone Cross