THERE are historic sights and buildings to admire across Saddleworth – but none as old or extraordinary as the excavations at Castleshaw.
Finds dating back to AD 79 have been uncovered by The Friends of Castleshaw Roman Forts during their work on the site above Delph.
In 2014 they received a mayor grant from Heritage Lottery Fund to support their research and have been excavating there every summer since, except during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The site is a scheduled ancient monument so they have to get permission from the Secretary of State to carry out the works.
About 3,000 school children and locals have been involved in the project, looking at two forts, a former farmhouse and surrounding land.
The latest project this summer aimed to uncover the route of the Roman road, which is believed to run from Castleshaw, across to Standedge and to Slack where there was another Roman fort.
The group of experienced archaeologists as well as volunteers excavated metre-square test pits and extended some previous ones to follow up where finds were made.
Jayne Redhead, from the group, explained: “This area was a Roman military annex with barracks, and would have been fortified with ditches around and a road in.
“It acted almost like a service station for the travelling Romans, so they could stay overnight, get food and water, and feed their oxen. They were fantastic engineers and were very self-sufficient.
“We can trace some of the road but the area has been used more recently as farmland so a lot of it has been damaged or disturbed.
“The landscape then would have been very different and heavily wooded. Over the years people have farmed, cut down the trees for buildings and ships so it has been disturbed a lot.
“And the soil is very acidic so things we find are now very soft or degraded.
“We’ve found burning in the ground and evidence of a clay oven used there. We’ve also found lots of stone ovens which must have been on an industrial scale.”
Finds included evidence of a Roman surface, which could be either a road or just a pathway between the buildings, as well as items including pottery, pipes, and gaming counters as well as post medieval pottery.
Everything found is catalogued, photographed, recorded and reports produced by the group, which works under the auspices of University of Salford.
Drone footage has also been taken so they can see the land from a bird’s eye view and map out how it fits together.
Now the latest work has finished, all the excavations have been back filled to ensure it doesn’t get damaged by the weather or the public.
• Find out more about the group and their work on their website:
www.castleshawarchaeology.co.uk
This is an interesting little footnote to the history of Saddleworth, (and of Lancashire as this fort was part of network the Roman forts as way-stations and the Roman fort at Castlefield in Manchester was operating at approximately the same time,) but to be perfectly honest there really isn’t very much to see there at all.
“If the Romans had been obliged to learn Latin they’d never had had the time to conquer the world.”
Heinrich Heine