Roman Dere Street and an Associated Roadside Settlement - Archive Report

A watching Brief was carried out along the length of the pipeline. This revealed several sites of interest along the pipeline which where further investigated. Most notably among these are the sites around Pool Lane, Green Hammerton. The excavations at Pool Lane investigated a Romano-British roadside settlement and located a river crossing equidistant from the important Roman centres of York and Aldborough. The wider investigations also provided the opportunity to define the course of Dere Street, the Roman road between these two centres. The investigations identified early Romano-British activity represented by three roundhouse gullies and associated enclosure ditches. Other features were dated to the late 3rd to 4th century and may represent a shift in the focus of the settlement in response to the construction of the Roman road. The features comprised a series of irregularly shaped enclosures respecting the course of the road, two rectangular timber-built structures flanking the road, a roundhouse, two pottery kilns, a cremation, and a possible cist. The establishment of the roadside settlement adjacent to the river crossing has been compared with other similar sites in the area and elsewhere and it can be proposed that its initial function may have been as part of a mansio system. The advantageous location at the crossing of a major Roman road over a watercourse could have promoted the subsequent development and expansion of the settlement. The emergence of a small-scale pottery industry at Pool Lane in the 3rd century AD was consistent with other development identified in the rural hinterland of York in this period. This growth may have been attributable to York gaining in prosperity as it became the capital of the newly created province of Britannia Inferior in AD197, which had a positive effect on the prosperity of the surrounding area. The quantity and quality of the artefacts recovered from Gowlands indicate that there was a relatively high-status Roman period site in the immediate vicinity. This may have been a second villa, or alternatively a Roman signal station or fortlet, located on the small knoll occupied by a modern farm. This would have presented a strategic position overlooking the bridgehead settlement at Pool Lane. Relatively substantial ditches that were sealed by midden deposits may represent minor defensive works