The report from our fieldwalking work has now been published in the Council for British Archaeology – Yorkshire Forum journal. We’re really proud of the work that you did with us on the field walking and it’s great to be able to share it with the wider region in what we hope will be the first of many articles. One of the photos from the field walk was even chosen as the cover image for…
We’ve made a start of some of the finds clean up from the field walking day. We’ve got through a few bags in an evening, so it’s a solid start, and I think we’ve got the procedure and method dialled in. We’ll look to organise more cleaning events over the coming weeks, so stay tuned for that! Thanks to all those locally that helped us with equipment donations, including the Bay Horse in Green Hammerton,…
As many of you will know, GHAS held a Finds Day at the end of last year, where people were invited to bring anything they had found of historical significance around the village. We had pottery, toys and figurines, maps and more brought to the Village club, where we photographed them and mapped out exactly where they were found to determine the archaeological hotspots around the village. This was very successful and one such example…
opendomesday.org lists Green Hammerton with the following entry: Altera Hanbretone, altera meaning “other”. The entry immediately above on the same folio is listed as being for Kirk Hammerton: Kirk Hammerton being listed as just Hanbretone. However, if we look in more detail at the entries, our contention is that these two are the wrong way around on the opendomesday.org site, and the listing for Kirk Hammerton is actually Green Hammerton. This is the listing for…
The Anglo Saxon period following the Roman road is much harder to discern in the archaeological record, and that is the same in Green Hammerton. It seems likely that given the proximity to road, and likely continued use of the road, that settlement continued in the area. From the Anglo Saxon period we have a fragment of a cruciform brooch which is from the PAS: This is part of a brooch which would have been…
The Roman period is when we might expect more activity in around Green Hammerton. Why? It’s right next to the Roman road from York to Cramond. RR8 is our Margary number, and the section through Green Hammerton is RR8a. This is the section of road from York (Eboracum) to Aldborough (Isurium Brigantum). Often this road is referred to as Dere Street, but that is not a name the Romans would have used. Dere Street is…
The Iron Age (800BC – 43AD) is where we start to see much more activity in the Green Hammerton archaeological record. Within the village, we’ve had several housing developments in recent years, which have turned up some interesting finds dating from the Iron Age. The Ambretone development (ongoing as of March 2023) and the Redrow development (Circa 2018) contain some Iron Age evidence. Let’s start with Ambretone: From the image above, there is a series…
There is not a huge amount of information from Green Hammerton for the period pre-dating the 8th Century BC. However in the wider area, there is much more evidence of prehistoric activity. There has been settlement in the Vale of York since prehistoric times due to York’s geographical location at the confluence of two rivers, and in the largest river valley in northern England. It also has access via the river to the sea (Radley…
In part 1 of this series, we looked at the first set of sources we used to research the archaeology of Green Hammerton. In this second part, we’ll look at the remaining sources of information available to us. Historic Maps Historic maps, provided by the National Library of Scotland, can give us clue to how the village has changed over time. You can see an example here from 1848, but we also have maps going…
In this series of articles, we will summarize the talk that we recently gave at the Village Club covering “The Archaeology of Green Hammerton: What We Know So Far”. In the first part, we will look at sources of information we can use to find out about the archaeology of our village. Even without putting a shovel into the ground we can find out a great deal about our past using the many sources of…