This unnamed mine lies in the Midlands at the southern edge of the Northamptonshire ironstone belt, an area where the Jurassic Northampton Sand Formation outcrops and was exploited for iron ore during the Roman period. Activity in this region is generally datable from the later 1st through the 4th century AD, with peak production in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, typically taking the form of shallow surface workings, bell pits, and associated bloomery furnaces rather than deep mining.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
Northamptonshire and the adjacent Nene Valley formed one of the more productive iron-working zones of Roman Britain, supplying both local agricultural and craft demand and likely contributing to wider regional markets via the Nene and the road network around Lactodurum (Towcester) and Durobrivae. Individual sites of this kind were small-scale rural operations rather than imperially administered works, but cumulatively they represent a significant component of the province's metallurgical economy.
Almost nothing is published specifically for this site, which is recorded only as an unnamed mine in the Pleiades gazetteer; comparable sites in the region (e.g. Laxton, Bulwick, Wakerley) have yielded slag heaps, tap slag, bloomery furnace bases, roasting hearths, and occasional associated settlement evidence including pottery and building debris. Without targeted excavation or survey reports, the scale, date range, and organisation of this
This unnamed mine lies in the Midlands at the southern edge of the Northamptonshire ironstone belt, an area where the Jurassic Northampton Sand Formation outcrops and was exploited for iron ore during the Roman period. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a mine site from the Roman period in Britain.
Unnamed Mine is classified as a Roman mine — a industrial 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 Unnamed Mine (0.7 km), Roman villa 200m W of Doddington Mill (1.7 km), Roman villa (2.3 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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