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Lidar - close to home

30/8/2025

Possible curvilinear enclosure on the small rounded hilltop of Blakeley Hill near Heddon on the Wall, faintly visible on enhanced LIDAR. The location is at OS grid reference: NZ 11036 66458.

Note that lidar data enhanced by the method used here accentuates raised banks in white, and ditches in black. A multicolour hillshade colours slope aspect (the direction faced) using a mixture of three colours. The west side of Blakeley Hill faces W and is coloured red

Possible prehistoric enclosed settlement on Blakeley Hill. Enhanced LIDAR (DSM, 1m) © Environment Agency (2022).

The enclosure is approximately 130m in diameter possibly within a much larger outer bank (c.250m). Note new A69 bypass on N side of the hill, and the old Hexham Road to the S. Other features visible on the hill look like small mounds and possible field boundaries. The feature visible on the NE side is an extant stone pile which appears to fill a natural hollow and has been there for many years. 1st Ed OS shows this was originally included in an extension of the triangular wood on E side of the hill (Blakeley Plantation).

There is nothing shown on old OS maps, satellite imagery, HE aerial mapping or on the Northumberland Historic Environment Record (HER). It could I suppose be underlying geology or old surface quarrying for stone, but nothing like it can be seen nearby except perhaps the Scheduled Iron Age enclosed settlement on Horsley Hill just over 1 mile to the
W (NZ 09273 66242) although that is markedly smaller in size (see below). Note shallow quarry pits on W and S sides.

Northumberland HER: N10018
Sheduled Monument: 1016470

Iron Age enclosed settlement on Horsley Hill. Enhanced LIDAR (DSM, 1m) © Environment Agency (2022).

The possible enclosed settlement on Blakeley Hill was added to the Northumberland HER on Friday 29th August 2025.

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Some Roman temporary camps - a lidar view

24/8/2025

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Chapel Rigg Roman temporary camp (NY 64590 65425)

I have been exploring our local archaeology using LIDAR images (DSM, 1m, copyright Environment Agency 2022), enhanced in QGIS for multi-directional hillshade and prismatic openness, and thought you might be interested in my observations regarding three of the temporary Roman camps associated with Stanegate. On the images, banks show as white and ditches as black.

Chapel Rigg, south of Gilsland, was the first where I noticed the very tenuous bank potentially surrounding the completed Camp. My first reaction was whether this was an indication of the Camp being built within a pre-existing prehistoric enclosure. This seemed a little unlikely when I discovered the second such camp about 1km west at Crooks. Reading the reports, I now understand this is termed an outwork although this also applies to the outer gate traverses which does hinder searching for information. These outer banks appear to be very fragmented, and barely visible, although recorded from aerial photos.

Chapel Rigg camp is described in the Northumberland HER (N6027) quoting from the publication Roman Camps in England as:
"a well-preserved camp, with unusual gates and an outwork".
"Centrally placed in each of the four sides of the camp is a gateway protected by the unusual combination of a traverse and an internal clavicula."
Only part of the outwork is described:
"From a point 19 m W of the W traverse, a well-defined scarp extends along the lip of the gully, merging occasionally with the natural slopes and fading out 22 m SW of the traverse of the S gate. Standing to a maximum height of about 0.6 m, it is marked by the same vegetation change as the rampart of the camp itself. This suggests that the scarp is the remnant of an artificial bank, which seems to have been provided only along that portion of the crest beyond which the floor of the gully forms dead ground when seen from the rampart of the camp. From this scarp, however, there is an unrestricted view down to the burn and it seems most likely that the bank was an outwork contemporary with the camp. Both the arrangement of the gates and the provision of an outwork is extremely unusual and may be indicative of the circumstances in which the camp was constructed."

The Roman temporary camp at Crooks is described in the HER (N6028):
"There are four gates, one in the centre of each side, and each defended by a traverse."

The outwork is recorded in a separate record (N33676):
"A series of irregular mounds and sinuous linear banks of uncertain date are visible as earthworks on air photographs and digital elevation models derived from Environment Agency lidar and Structure from Motion taken from 2017 specialist oblique photography.
The features are arrayed around the north, west and south of Crooks Roman Camp, but are unlikely to be directly associated. The features were examined on the ground and were visible as very low relief features, possibly geological in nature, though no comparative features were found in the area."

I read somewhere in a description of one of these camps thst the outwork could be the result of later agricultural activities.

I am confident that these are not artefacts of processing (HE have them on their aerial mapping) and experience has shown me that this enhanced lidar is capable of showing things that you can’t readily see in the field (20cm or less in height).

Crooks Roman temporary camp (NY 63615 65614)

Having a good look around other temporary camps from this area I then came across the Camp at Lees Hall/Four Laws which is described as having an outwork of apparent Roman construction. This left me wondering if that might actually apply to all three, although clearly the example at Lees Hall is much neater and more decidedly Roman in appearance. I note the locations of all three of these Camps are south of the Stanegate, possibly in unusual locations, and potentially early.

Lees Hall/Four Laws Roman camp NY 70464 65688

Reading the report in HER (N6475) for the Roman camp at Lees Hall/Four Laws I note the following (quoted from Roman Camps in England):
"The siting of this camp, and the provision of an outwork, are most unusual"
"The outwork consists only of a bank with no attendant ditch. Apart from a slight irregularity in its alignment around the NE angle, it lies parallel to the rampart of the camp and about 13 m outside it. The bank is in poor condition and in some places is barely discernable, but that on the S side is clearly visible on vertical aerial photographs taken in 1946 (RAF 106G/UK 1392, 4186-7 (9c)). The NW corner has been completely destroyed but elsewhere it averages about 0.2 m in height and is spread to a width of about 3.2 m. On the N, W and S there is a break in the bank opposite each entrance; another gap probably existed outside the E gate although it is now impossible to confirm this without excavation. Outworks are known to have been provided around Roman forts in Britain (Wilson 1984 (9d)) but for a camp the provision of such an encircling outwork seems to be unique. The existence of an earthwork here must throw some doubt on the classification of the site, although it is unknown whether the inner and outer defences are strictly contemporary. Its position, which has no natural strength on the S, may have prompted the provision of this extra line of defence. Either way, it is not likely to have been a temporary encampment or fortification and occupation may have been for a season or more. If the blocking of the W entrance took place in Roman times this would suggest more than one period of use. A relatively early date for the initial construction may be indicated by the presence of claviculae. Proof is lacking, but since the fortlet beside the Haltwhistle Burn 1 km to the ENE, was not occupied before c AD 105 (Breeze and Dobson 1985, 8 (9e)), it is conceivable that the earthworks at Lees Hall are those of a predecessor. If so, they might be early Flavian, or even Agricolan, in date"

If we can accept these outworks as being Roman in origin, and that is far from proven, it appears possible that they could represent preparation of the site before the camps were constructed. This may have involved some element of levelling or perhaps removal of bushes, trees and other vegetation for the camp area and/or part of the surrounding area. This seems essential to provide visibility from within the camp, and remove potential hiding places for the enemy.

Supporting this possibility, I read the following about Roman temporary camps (Josephus, Wars of the Jews, Book III, Chapter 5:
"...but if it happens that the ground is uneven, it is first levelled"

However, we do need to ask why we don't see these traces at the many other temporary Roman camps which dot our area around Stanegate, Hadrian's Wall and the major Roman Roads. Perhaps the three shown here represent earlier camps along Stanegate and the practice subsequently went out of use.

Also interesting is that the Chapel Rigg camp sits close to the SW corner of a much larger Roman temporary camp.This hides in plain sight given away by the external traverses of its W, E and S gates

Neither the small camps nor this big one appear on the Historic England aerial mapping. The northern boundary of this large camp was originally described in the Northumberland HER (N33640) as part of a possible medieval enclosure, or part of a trackway, but apparently reinterpreted from 2011 Environment Agency lidar as the possible north-face of a large Roman camp. Indeed it is.

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Lidar - close to home

Some Roman temporary camps - a lidar view

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