This is a small Romano-British native farmstead in the Rede valley of upland Northumberland, situated on a low ridge southeast of Shittleheugh bastle. Like comparable enclosed settlements in the Redesdale and North Tyne uplands, it most likely belongs to the broad period of the 2nd–4th centuries AD, though earlier Iron Age origins cannot be excluded without excavation.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
It forms part of the dense pattern of indigenous stone-walled farmsteads that occupied the hinterland behind Hadrian's Wall and immediately west of Dere Street, representing the rural population whose pastoral and mixed agricultural economy underpinned, and was taxed by, the military zone. Its proximity to Dere Street and the fort at Bremenium (High Rochester) places it firmly within the surveilled landscape of the frontier.
The site is known principally from earthwork and aerial survey rather than excavation, typically comprising a sub-rectangular or curvilinear enclosure with traces of stone-founded round-houses and associated yards or paddocks, consistent with the regional "Redesdale type" settlement. No excavated finds assemblage is published for this specific farmstead, so its precise chronology and economy remain inferred from analogous sites such as Woolaw and Riding Wood.
This is a small Romano-British native farmstead in the Rede valley of upland Northumberland, situated on a low ridge southeast of Shittleheugh bastle. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a site site from the Roman period in Britain.
Romano-British farmstead, 550m south-east of Shittleheugh is classified as a Roman site — 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 Blakehope Roman fort and Roman temporary camp (1.2 km), Dargues (1.2 km), Four Romano-British settlements, field system and cord rig cultivation on Fairney Cleugh (1.4 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 Romano-British farmstead, 550m south-east of Shittleheugh