Catcote
Romano British Settlement
Catcote is a prehistoric and Romano-British
settlement on the crest and slopes of a low hill
on the edge of the modern town of Hartlepool.
intro | bronze
age | iron
age & romano-british
gallery | reports |
further information
Catcote lies on the eastern slope of a low hill,
three miles (4.8 kilometres) south-west of Hartlepool,
on the north-east coast of England.
Map Reference
NZ 487 316.
In 1963, during building work on the English
Martyrs School, Hartlepool, evidence of a settlement
was uncovered although, sadly, there are few
records of exactly what was found. However
diaries and archive photographs suggest that
there were
substantial stone buildings here.
An excavation organised by Durham University
in 1964 uncovered a round house and human burials
but no further work took place until 1987, when
an earlier Bronze Age settlement and a rectangular
Romano-British building were discovered on the
north side of the hill.
In 1998 Tees Archaeology, Durham University
and the Summerhill Woodland Centre established
an annual research and training programme. This
allows 4 weeks of further excavation every summer
involving students and volunteers.
The Bronze Age inhabitants of Catcote would
have been farmers, growing crops of wheat and
barley and raising cattle and sheep, their diet
supplemented by hazelnuts and wild fruits. Routeways
and enclosures were developed to handle the large
number of livestock and it seems probable that
the farming of animals was more important than
the cultivation of cereals at this time. Such
organisation suggests a relatively large, prosperous,
co-operative and structured society.
Whilst the Bronze Age settlers favoured the
valley bottom, the later Iron Age and Romano-British
site lies on the crest and east-facing slope
of the hill. By now most of the woodland had
been cleared, allowing cereal cultivation on
a much larger scale. The rectangular Romano-British
building discovered in 1987 may have served as
a grainstore.
The location of this settlement, with unbroken
views across Hartlepool Bay and the Tees Estuary,
suggests a need for vigilance. The remains of
fenced and ditched enclosures containing roundhouses
have been uncovered along with some stone buildings.
While Catcote was a major Iron Age settlement
it became far more prosperous with the Roman
Conquest of the North at the end of the 1st Century
AD. It seems to have controlled local trade with
coastal shipping supplying the northern garrison.
The quality and quantity of finds from Catcote
certainly suggests that this was a high status
settlement. There are still a great number of
questions to be answered about Catcote; our annual
excavations are gradually piecing together the
jigsaw.
View the map of Catcote
intro | bronze
age | iron
age & romano-british
gallery | reports |
further information |
