This is a multi-period rural complex in the Cheviot foothills of north Northumberland, near Middleton Dean, including two Romano-British farmsteads of the type widespread across the region from the 1st to 4th centuries AD. The farmsteads are small, enclosed native settlements — almost certainly comprising stone-founded roundhouses set within ditched or banked enclosures, linked by an associated trackway and overlying or adjacent to a later medieval moated site, settlement, and field system.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
Sites of this type represent the indigenous, non-villa rural economy of the frontier zone behind Hadrian's Wall, where stock-rearing and small-scale arable farming continued under Roman rule with limited material Romanisation. The continuity of land use into the medieval period — evidenced by the moated site and ridge-and-furrow nearby — illustrates the long-term agricultural value of these upland margins.
The site is known principally from earthwork survey and aerial photography rather than excavation; no significant assemblage of finds has been published, and dating of the Romano-British phase rests on morphological parallels with excavated farmsteads elsewhere in Northumberland such as those at Hartburn or Huckhoe. The associated round cairn 850m to the north suggests prehistoric activity in the wider landscape predating the Roman-period occupation.
This is a multi-period rural complex in the Cheviot foothills of north Northumberland, near Middleton Dean, including two Romano-British farmsteads of the type widespread across the region from the 1st to 4th centuries AD. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a settlement site from the Roman period in Britain.
Round cairn 850m, and two Romano-British farmsteads, associated trackway, moated site, medieval settlement and field system 900m SSE of Middleton Dean 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 farmstead on the eastern slope of Dod Hill, 1km north of The Dod (0.6 km), Three Romano-British farmsteads and part of a field system on Heddon Hill 900m north west of Calder (1.3 km), South Ringles Roman period native settlement 850m north west of Middleton Dean (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 Round cairn 850m, and two Romano-British farmsteads, associated trackway, moated site, medieval settlement and field system 900m SSE of Middleton Dean