Beadlam
A Roman Villa only 4km from Kirkdale
in the heart of our ancestral lands
A Roman
Estate
Only 3km to
the west of Kirkdale,
about 10 km south west of the entrance to Farndale, there is an area
within a field which is bounded by a wooden fence. At around the turn of the
twentieth century, the field was used for pasture and
it had not been ploughed in recent memory. The site became the military camp of
the Yorkshire Hussars, the Yorkshire Dragoons and the East Riding Yeomanry, as
they prepared to embark to the Boer War. The remains of some old buildings,
overgrown and covered in thistles, were dismissed as some old cart sheds.
It was not
until some archaeological
fieldwork in 1965 that fragments were identified as Roman so that
excavations started the following year. The excavations revealed three building
ranges which enclosed an open courtyard, facing south.
Beadlam is one of a
cluster of villas in Ryedale including Langton
Near Malton, Oulston and Hovingham.
The northern regions were dominated by the Roman army, including the
fortification along Hadrian’s Wall. The Roman capital was only 25 km to the
south of Bedlam at Eboracum.
Even closer
to the entrance to Farndale, between Hutton-le-Hole and Spaunton/Lastingham,
Roman remains
suggest that Romano British people were living in a clearing between tracts of
forest and moorland, on the site which may have been occupied in Neolithic
through to Bronze Age periods. The site was discovered in 1962 when pot sherds
were found. There was evidence of a domestic hearth or oven and animals ones of ox, pig, horse, goat and red deer. There
were some similarities to finds at the villa at Langton. These were likely to have been smallholder
farmers producing for themselves, but subject to Roman tax levies in corn or
hides. A larger
farmstead was found nearby, which included primitive hypocausts. In all
there were four isolated farms. These were probably small families of native
Britons in touch with such Roman culture whose daily life probably varied little if at all from that
of their early Celtic ancestors.
Only 5km
east of Lastingham was the Roman military site at Cawthorn.
There were two forts, one with an extension, and a temporary camp built to an
unusual plan. The earthworks date from the late first or early second century
CE. It has been suggested that they were built for practice rather than for
operational military use.
For at least
two centuries before the end of the fifth century, Ryedale was a settled
northern region of the Roman Empire. More remote smallholder farmers seem to
have ventured into the wilder forested lands of the low dales.
It is likely
that Beadlam was the hub of a working estate that
provided its owners with an income. Comparable estates show evidence for arable
farming and pasture, the management of woodlands, quarrying and some industrial
activity. There is evidence of metalworking at Beadlam.
Since most of the population of Roman Britain lived in the countryside, it is
likely that sites like Beadlam would have played an
important part in the rural economy. There was probably trade with larger
settlements such as Eboracum, Malton or Isurium Brigantium. Beadlam was probably
an arable farm, and since Britain’s wool trade really originated in Roman
times, it seems likely that woollen cloth and garments might have been exported
from this area. The villa suggests peace and economic prosperity.
Excavations
have revealed a
rich array of Roman objects, including jewellery, pottery and expensive
glassware, showing that luxury items were traded even at the farthest extent of
the empire. The pottery was mostly fourth century CE
and 15 coins were found that dated from 150 to 390 CE.
Bone comb
fragment
Padlock
Spur
Glass pin
Beadlam
lies within a Roman civitate (region) formerly
controlled by the Brigantes. After the Roman
conquest, the region was administered from the newly built Roman town of Isurium Brigantum.
Evidence of
occupation at Beadlam before the construction of the
villa suggests that its owners were members of existing elites who had adopted
a Roman lifestyle. An enclosure ditch and walled compounds for livestock at Beadlam pre-dated the villa, suggesting the site was in use
earlier. It was quite common across Roman Britain for Iron Age farmsteads to be
developed with a Roman-style building. Alternatively, villas such as Beadlam could have been the homes of retired soldiers who
had been rewarded with land for their service, absentee landowners living
elsewhere in the empire, or even the Roman emperor himself, who owned various
estates in the province of Britannia.
The villa
complex was probably constructed in about 300 CE and was occupied until about
400 CE, just before the end of Roman Britain. The fourth century CE was a time
when elite Romans in Britain were building private villas, and comparatively
few villas were built before this time.
The villa at
Beadlam had about 30 rooms, which were spread across three
ranges built around a large courtyard. The North Range, the only one visible
today, is a typical Romano-British winged-corridor house. This house comprised
communal rooms in the centre and two private suites of well-appointed rooms on
either side, connected by a long veranda. There as a remarkable mosaic
pavement.
Roman
villa at Lullingstone, Kent, which was of similar
design to Beadlam The Beadlam mosaics
The West
Range included a room with a heating system (hypocaust) and a bath house. The
West Range seems to have been roofed with tiles, the other two Ranges with
stone slabs. Bath house were prominent feature in
later Romano-British villas. It would include hot, tepid and cold rooms as well
as hot and cold plunge-baths. At Beadlam the remains
of hypocausts were found in the West Range, and these may have belonged to a
bath suite. Water could have been obtained from the nearby River Riccal or from a well.
In the East
Range there was an elaborate reception room with another fine mosaic.
The three
ranges might have been self-contained or might have belonged to different
households, who shared the use of some rooms.
On the
eastern side were further buildings that seem to have been used for industrial
or agricultural processes.
It is possible
that any Roman presence in nearby Kirkdale might have
been related to a place for the burial of the dead from Beadlam.
It is not clear whether late Roman Christianity might have reached Kirkdale. It
was evident in York and it was arguably present in the
excavations at the Beadlam villa, but this remains
uncertain.
or
Go Straight to Chapter 5 – Roman Kirkdale
Or read
about Eboracum (Roman York), the
large nearby villa of Hovingham,
or the regional capital of Isurium Brigantum.