Iron Age and Roman Settlement at Hazel Lane Quarry, Hampole, South Yorkshire

Abstract

Archaeological investigation over the past twenty-eight years at Hazel Lane Quarry, Hampole, has revealed a landscape that has been utilised since the Neolithic period. The intensive use of the landscape was attested to by an extensive field system of Iron Age and Roman date incorporating ditched enclosures, field boundaries and a trackway. Within these there was good evidence for crop processing in the form of carbonised cereal grains. Limited industrial evidence, including iron smelting, also suggests a variety of activity across the site. The most significant remains were of a stone building of Roman date which contained a hypocaust heating system and painted wall plaster and may be a bath house. This is one of only a small number of bath houses currently recorded regionally. The pottery from this structure was deposited from the late second century with the recovery of amphorae and fine wares suggesting a high status rural site, possibly associated with a villa or Romanised farmstead.