| Abstract: |
Upgrading of the A1 road in North Yorkshire to motorway status has provided a significant opportunity to study a section of this historic and nationally important route. The scheme, which ran from the Dishforth Interchange to Leeming Bar near Bedale, covered a distance of 22km through the Vale of Mowbray, a low lying area of rich agricultural land occupying an interfluve ridge between the River Swale and the River Ure.The road has been in existence for almost 2000 years, acting variously as a focus for travel, settlement, and as a major boundary in the landscape. During the Roman period, it formed one of the principal north-south routes in the north of the province, linking two of the relatively few urban centres; Isurium at Aldborough and Cataractonium at Catterick. In the medieval period, it formed part of the route between London and Carlisle, and as such it remained one of the most prominent features of the area. Its importance increased in the post-medieval period and its early designation as a turnpike and use as a postal road (the Great North Road) resulted in the development of large farms and inns along the roadside. The Roman road, now widely known by its late Anglo-Saxon name of Dere Street, may have formalised a route with prehistoric origins. A combination of environmental evidence from peat cores and excavated Iron Age remains at points along the route provided evidence of widespread tree clearance, extensive field systems, and trackways indicating that this was a populated and organised landscape prior to its annexation by the Romans in the later 1st century AD. The most significant site encountered was the Roman settlement at Healam Bridge, a site which was poorly understood until archaeological work connected to the road scheme was undertaken. The work has shown this site to have been a major roadside settlement of considerable complexity. It lay strategically between two Roman towns and would have been one of the largest settlements in Roman North Yorkshire, an area of few urban or semi-urban communities.The Healam Bridge settlement covered an area of at least 18ha, along nearly a kilometre of the Roman road. The excavation investigated 15% of the known site, making it one of the most extensively excavated roadside settlements in the north of Roman Britain. The route of the motorway was positioned to avoid the known core of the settlement, but the excavation nevertheless examined a substantial transect of the site. Importantly, on the slopes beside the nearby Healam Beck, a well-preserved, deep sequence of partially waterlogged deposits were preserved, containing multiple phases of building and showing episodes of land reclamation and flood defence.The excavated evidence suggests that the settlement at Healam Bridge was probably a Hadrianic foundation, although there was evidence that Dere Street had been constructed through this area by the late 1st century AD. The absence of a significant assemblage of military equipment linked to the evidence for a highly Romanised diet and tableware assemblage suggests that the site was initially occupied by people from elsewhere in England or from further afield, but not by the Roman army. After an apparent contraction during the 3rd century, the settlement saw renewed activity during the 4th century, including evidence for intensive crop processing. Evidence for occupation continued into the 5th century AD.The settlement contained and was surrounded by substantial areas of grazing land. There is widespread evidence that equids were present in significant numbers, and it is suggested that mules were kept and possibly bred here. The supply of these animals represents an important part of the settlement's economy, perhaps a dominant one, and it is possible that the settlement was established deliberately to supply transport for the army and other branches of the government. The site's location, one day's travel between the two Roman towns, would also have made it a natural market centre.Healam Bridge, although by far the largest, was not the sole Roman period site encountered. Parts of two other Roman-period settlements were also found in the southern part of the scheme and evidence for Dere Street itself was also investigated in several locations where it was found to be preserved beneath the former course of the Great North Road. |
