Project Highlights

Breamish Valley

The Northumberland Archaeology Group (under the direction of Peter Topping) have concentrated their fieldwork on Wether Hill, including investigation of the hillfort, adjacent palisaded enclosures, cord rigg field system, and an extraordinary burial pit containing food vessels, beakers and the remnants of a timber cist or coffin dated to c.2000BC.

University fieldwork has ranged more widely around the farm, and has included:

• Excavation of two early Bronze Age burial cairns on Turf Knowe, from which several food vessels have been recovered. One of these cairns is of an unusual tri-radial form, and several similar cairns have recently been recorded at other locations in the Northumberland uplands. C14 dates from these cairns centre on c2000BC. The flint assemblage from around the cairn includes a Mesolithic component, suggesting use of the natural platform here as a hunting camp long before the construction of the cairns.
• Excavation of part of the ‘Little Haystacks’ Romano-British settlement in the attempt to unravel the absolute and relative chronologies of settlement, boundary and field system. Results were in many ways inconclusive, but a previously unrecognised palisaded enclosure of possible late BA date was found beneath the RB site.
• Excavation of Fawden Dean palisaded enclosures, discovered by aerial photography. Found to contain stone built roundhouses, one of late IA date, the other of RB date. Roman coin and other artefacts found within the later enclosure.
• Excavation of the Ingram South enclosure, from which samples obtained from the ditch fill returned a C14 date in the mid second century AD.
• Excavation trenches through cultivation terraces. Various C14 dates obtained from different contexts: date of 80-260 cal AD from a pit cut into the surface of a terrace proves that at least some terraces are prehistoric in origin. In support of this, 2 samples from truncated soil horizons within the same terrace system have returned early BA dates.
• An independent programme of fieldwork in partnership with Dave Passmore (University of Newcastle upon Tyne) has begun the task of constructing a palaeoenvironmental framework for the valley with a very informative new pollen core from nearby Broad Moss.
• Investigation of the garden at Ingram Rectory has resulted in the recovery of a large assemblage of 13th/14th century pottery from remnant rigg and furrow. In contrast to this, not a single sherd of medieval pottery has been recovered from the multitude of excavation trenches elsewhere on the farm.

The Breamish Valley Archaeology project’s final fieldwork season was in the summer of 2003 and the final report is now being prepared.

The research work has produced a tremendous amount of invaluable information and at the same time has provided a number of other benefits.

Through membership of Northumberland Archaeological Group, members of the public have been provided with an opportunity to become involved in a real excavation, and on a site of great importance. It also afforded a valuable educational and training opportunity for students of the University of Durham to gain real hands-on experience under the professional guidance of Archaeological Services, the University's professional archaeological unit.

Furthermore Northumberland National Park Authority staged guided walks to the excavations providing an opportunity for visitors to see archaeology in action and an annual public presentation in Ingram Village Hall each winter, on the previous summer's work, was consistently well attended.

A new exhibition featuring discoveries from the excavations in the Breamish Valley was opened by the Duke of Northumberland on Monday, 2nd August 2004 at the newly refurbished National Park Centre, Ingram. The exhibition featured a number of early Bronze Age pots, one of which includes the cremated remains of an infant who apparently died from meningitis four thousand years ago. The pots were found in two Bronze Age burial sites on Turf Knowe, near Ingram. An illustrated booklet ‘People of the Breamish Valley’ was produced to accompany this exhibition.