The Gallow Law settlement near Alwinton, in the Coquet valley of the Cheviot foothills, is a multi-phase upland settlement typical of the Northumberland uplands: an Iron Age defended enclosure overlain or adapted by an undefended Romano-British native settlement of stone-walled round houses set within a yard or enclosure system. Such sites in this area were generally active from the later first millennium BC through the 2nd–4th centuries AD.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
It belongs to the dense pattern of native farming settlements occupying the Cheviot fringes behind the Roman frontier, lying close to the Roman road (Dere Street) and the outpost fort at Bremenium (High Rochester); these communities supplied agricultural produce and pasture to the frontier zone while continuing largely indigenous lifeways under Roman rule.
The site is known principally from earthwork survey rather than excavation, showing the standard Cheviot sequence of a curvilinear defensive bank and ditch later succeeded by stone hut circles and small embanked yards; no significant excavated finds assemblage is recorded, and dating rests on morphological comparison with excavated parallels such as Kennel Hall Knowe and Riding Wood.
The Gallow Law settlement near Alwinton, in the Coquet valley of the Cheviot foothills, is a multi-phase upland settlement typical of the Northumberland uplands: an Iron Age defended enclosure overlain or adapted by an undefended Romano-British native settlement of stone-walled round houses set within a yard or enclosure system. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a settlement site from the Roman period in Britain.
Iron Age defended settlement and later Romano-British settlement on Gallow Law, 600m north of Alwinton Farm 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 Romano-British settlement, 300m south east of Hosedon Linn (0.8 km), Romano-British farmstead, 275m north-east of Hosedon Linn (1.3 km), Romano-British settlement, 580m north west of Biddleston Home Farm (3.3 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 Iron Age defended settlement and later Romano-British settlement on Gallow Law, 600m north of Alwinton Farm