The site 490m SSE of Apperley Dene is a small Romano-British rural settlement in the Tyne valley of Northumberland, lying in the hinterland of Dere Street and the Hadrian's Wall frontier zone. It likely dates to the 2nd–4th centuries AD, comparable to other native-tradition farmsteads in the region — probably a modest enclosed settlement with one or two roundhouses or rectilinear stone-founded structures, engaged in mixed pastoral and arable agriculture.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
Its importance lies less in any individual prominence than as part of the dense pattern of indigenous farmsteads that continued to occupy the uplands south of the Wall, supplying the military zone and demonstrating the persistence of native settlement forms under Roman administration. Apperley Dene itself is better known for a nearby small Roman fortlet on the road from Corbridge, and this civilian site likely existed in economic relationship with that military installation.
Very little has been published specifically about this particular settlement; it is recorded primarily through aerial photography and field survey rather than excavation, with the adjacent fortlet (investigated in the 1930s and again later) receiving the bulk of archaeological attention. No detailed artefactual assemblage from the settlement itself is recorded in readily available sources.
The site 490m SSE of Apperley Dene is a small Romano-British rural settlement in the Tyne valley of Northumberland, lying in the hinterland of Dere Street and the Hadrian's Wall frontier zone. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a settlement site from the Roman period in Britain.
Romano-British settlement, 490m SSE of Apperley Dene 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 Vindomora (5.4 km), Romano-British farmstead, 900m north east of Thornborough High Barns (8.8 km), Defended settlement and Romano-British settlement on Shildon Hill (9.2 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
Aubrey Research generates detailed historical reports for any location in Britain, incorporating Roman heritage, Domesday Book records, scheduled monument data, archaeological finds and much more. Enter a nearby address to begin.
Aubrey generates in-depth historical research for any address in Britain — drawing on Roman heritage, Domesday records, scheduled monument data, archaeological finds and medieval history to reveal the complete story of a landscape.
Research the area around Romano-British settlement, 490m SSE of Apperley Dene