The Fremington Hoard

1. The Fremington Hoard

4. There are 103 pieces in total including some which appear to be Late Iron Age, ‘British’. They have been recorded by G.A.Webster (1971) The Yorkshire Museum ( online Archaeology collection) The British Museum And described by others (Wellbeloved (1852) Phillips (1852)) And compared to The Doorwerth Hoard ( Rijksmuseum Oudheden online collection)

5. The hoard ‘dominates’ the Yorkshire Museum’s collection of Roman military equipment ( the Museum’s own words: Tilley) It belongs in Swaledale and is a part of its rich history but it’s stuck away in store The process of finding out about it, putting it in its historical and archaeological context has revealed/emphasised important information about the Hagg ( and Reels Head) It’s too important to ignore because...

6. It’s been quite a journey. New evidence has come to light and older evidence has had to be re-evaluated, again and again.

7. In fact, it’s been hard….there are so many pictures and ideas ‘buzzing around’ in my head

8. ...and it’s not over yet Your feedback will be really valuable Next destination...Yorkshire Museum in April, tbc I hope that some of you would like to come along as well

9. LIDAR/GIS mapping ( x 3) Documentary research (Webster, Craddock et al, field surveys, excavation reports, specialist journal articles, etc) Comparative research (Nicolay, Haselgrove, Collis et al, Martyn Allen, place name studies, Rural Settlement of Roman Britain project etc) The process of ‘finding out’:part 1

12. Produced lovely line drawings (I have copies if you’d like to photocopy them) His pre-Flavian date has yet to be challenged BUT He made errors of fact and judgement (which is a bit of a surprise) Craddock et al tested 6 samples from the British Museum and 5 from the Yorkshire Museum ‘From the same workshop; from the same crucible’ Webster; Cradock et al

13. Johan Nicolay; Colin Haselgrove • University of Groningen • The leading expert on deposits of Roman period military items in non-military settings in the Rhineland ( where auxiliary cavalry in northern Britain came from..Batavia, Frisia, Northern and Central Gaul etc) • The hoard was a single deposit ( the ‘bits’ that Webster rejected as ‘not belonging’ did belong to the hoard) • Haselgrove re-evaluated the (pre Roman?) Stanwick hoard which included objects like those Webster rejected( in his final report on the excavations at Stanwick: ‘Cartimandua’s capital’) • Webster’s assumption that Tuke’s caparison and Harland’s ‘donation’ were parts of a broken up hoard is questionable and unnecessary

15. My assumption was that these were Neolithic/Bronze Age/Iron Age field boundaries He looked at this image and suggested these were more like the Roman era ‘ladder’ field systems Martyn Allen: Rural Settlement of Roman Britain

16. ‘Summer Farms’ Collis-student and co-worker with Fleming A study of pastoralism and ‘transhumance’ and the evidence herders leave in the landscape

17. Place names Hagg: Old English…...’hedge’, ‘hawthorn’...some kind of annually/seasonally maintained boundary linked to the events in the stock rearing year/ seasonal pastoralism Possible corruption/transposition of ‘haugr’, Old Norse Reels Head: Old English/Old Norse/Norman French- different versions of similar place names to do with ‘gathering in’,’gathering together’,’meeting seasonally’ ‘keeping watch’

18. Documentary evidence ( e.g.census returns, Yorkshire Philosophical Society annual reports, tithe returns, the 1301 Lay subsidy, ‘The Great Trial’) The Tithe Map and the OS 6 inch up to and including 1910. The process of finding out: part 2

19. Where is/was ‘Fremington Hagg’? It is (West) Hagg and the fields around it • 1301 Lay Subsidy • Testimony by Anthony Atkinson at the Great Trial 1708 • Tithe Map

20. Where was the hoard found? Building Work, Cleminson Ploughed Arable, Metcalfe Mound/ Barrow ‘digging’ Cleminson and/or ? New Access to Hagg, Cleminson

21. Daniel Tuke….deceased ‘Captain’ Harland (1852)...vendor The Yorkshire Museum (Keeper: Edward Charlesworth; trustee and author of a catalogue Reverend Wellbeloved (1852))...buyer(s) Canon Greenwell (after 1868 ?)...collector Augustus Wollaston Franks (after 1866; by1880?)...buyer Who ‘benefitted’…?

22. Villains of the piece..from a modern, non antiquarian perspective? ‘Captain’ Harland Charlesworth Greenwell Franks

23. Who ‘got it wrong’ and ‘misdirected’ their readers without any evidence? Reverend Wellbeloved ( catalogue description 1852) Professor Phillips; one time Keeper of the Museum ‘the work of an ingenious Gaul’ (1852) The 1891 Museum catalogue (Platenauer): ‘the stock in trade of some travelling artisan’ G.A Webster: ‘ a cache of loot….taken by a follower of Venutius..and never recovered’ (1971)

24. What’s it all ‘mean’?

25. It’s certainly a ‘rich’picture There are dozens of images in my head It’s an ongoing process of knitting them together, unpicking the knitting and trying a new pattern

26. So here’s my current best shot...

27. Permanent, year round settlement in Swaledale begins in the Late Iron Age (Stanwick) Roman occupation leads to the construction of specialised field systems ( military/civilian supply chain; extension of ‘farming’ instead of ‘pastoralism’ on to marginal uplands) The hoard is deposited on the Hagg sometime in the 60s AD What do you think..?

28. In the late Roman period, pastoralism returns, permanent year round settlement ends In the post Roman-Anglo Scandinavian period, pastoralism continues The Hagg is adopted( or re-commissioned) as a seasonal gathering place/watch ‘tower’ Post Conquest permanent settlement and (?) new field systems, respecting Hagg 1100 promoted by major landowners and religious houses

29. The Hagg has been a ‘special’ place throughout prehistory and in to medieval period. The Hagg has been ‘trampled’, built on, rebuilt, used for multiple different purposes and ‘dug’ throughout its history It’s a ‘disturbed’ site with shallow soils Finding evidence of pastoralism, early occupation, occupation and use post C4th is going to be challenging Its likely that we’ll find that evidence in the field boundaries, cultivation terraces and by digging new ‘structures’ rather than ‘under the flags’ in the most disturbed area of all

30. The LIDAR GIS maps and the historical record strongly suggest that there is an important medieval-post Reformation farmstead/hamlet waiting to be uncovered in fields which may not have been as badly disturbed as those around Hagg 103

31. Doesn’t the hoard need ‘bringing home’ so SWAAG goes on ‘Educating the public… and visitors ….(promoting) better understanding and management of (Swaledale’s) heritage.’? What about the archaeology of Swaledale’s pre Roman, early medieval and medieval heritage?

32. Links to Museum on line collections

38. M.Allen et al The Rural Settlement of Roman Britain: an online resource Archaeology Data Service free access at http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archives/view/romangl/ J.Collis et al:Summer Farms: Seasonal Exploitation of the Uplands from Prehistory to the Present 2017 P.T.Craddock, J.Lang, K.S.Painter ‘Roman Horse from Fremington Hagg’ British Museum Quarterly Summer 1973 (available on line, free download at JSTOR: use advanced search for ‘Craddock’ and ‘Fremington’) T.Gates ‘The Great Trial’ A Swaledale Lead Mining Dispute 2012 C.Haselgrove ‘Cartimandua’s Capital?’2016 J.Nicolay: Armed Batavians : Use and Significance of Weaponry and Horse Gear from Non-military Contexts in the Rhine Delta (50 BC to AD 450) free download at http://www.oapen.org/search?identifier=397486 E.Tilley Old Collections, New Questions: Researching the Roman Collections of the Yorkshire Museum 2018 free download at https://www.yorkshiremuseum.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2018/02/Old-Collections-New-Questions-Researching-the-Roman-Collections-of-the-Yorkshire-Museum-2018.pdf G.A.Webster ‘ A Hoard of Roman Military Equipment from Fremington Hagg’ in ‘Soldier and Civilian in Roman Yorkshire’ 1971 Yorkshire Philosophical Society reports 1823-1859 at https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/2482#/summary Bibliography