Keld Smithy Green sits on Holwick Fell in upper Teesdale, on the south side of the Tees in what was historically the North Riding of Yorkshire. The site is a multi-period upland complex centred on a Romano-British native settlement, probably active during the later Iron Age into the Roman period (broadly 1st–4th centuries AD), with later medieval reuse evidenced by a bloomery, building, trackway and a charcoal pit. The Romano-British component is typical of the small, enclosed or semi-enclosed pastoral farmsteads found across the Pennine uplands.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
The site lies well beyond any urban centre, within the territory of the Brigantes and probably under loose military oversight from forts such as Bowes (Lavatrae) and Binchester (Vinovia). Its significance is essentially economic — part of the dispersed pattern of upland stock-rearing communities that supplied animals, hides and wool, and persisted with little material change through the Roman occupation; the later bloomery indicates the same landscape was exploited for iron production in the medieval period.
The site is known primarily from earthwork survey rather than excavation, with surface remains of hut platforms, enclosure banks, the bloomery mound and associated medieval features identified during fieldwork on Holwick Fell. No substantial published excavation assemblage exists for this specific site, so dating relies on morphological comparison with better-investigated Teesdale settl
Keld Smithy Green sits on Holwick Fell in upper Teesdale, on the south side of the Tees in what was historically the North Riding of Yorkshire. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a settlement site from the Roman period in Britain.
Roman period native settlement, medieval bloomery, building and track, and a charcoal pit at Keld Smithy Green, Holwick Fell 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 Burial cairns, burnt mound, Roman native settlement, medieval settlement with field system and iron industry remains, and five shielings on Holwick Fell (0.6 km), Roman period native farmstead at Hind Gate, 140m south of Green House (1.3 km), Roman period native settlement and field system 260m west of Wynch Bridge (1.7 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 Roman period native settlement, medieval bloomery, building and track, and a charcoal pit at Keld Smithy Green, Holwick Fell