Huddersfield in Roman Times
By Ian A. Richmond
SOCIAL CONDITIONS, A.D. 80-125.
LIFE IN THE ROMAN FORTS: POPULATION
When the kind of evidence just described is lacking in the
Huddersfield district, it is necessary to fall back upon
definite, but still scanty, proofs of native habitation.
It is clear from the coin-hoards which have been mentioned
already in connection with Roman influences that there was
a considerable native population in the district at the
time of the Roman conquest. As the handbook on Early Man
points out, this centred in Castle Hill, Almondbury, one
of the biggest and best preserved hill-forts in southern
Yorkshire.
Perhaps sufficient evidence is afforded for
some sort of settlement at Lightcliffe by the magnificent
hoard of coins and another coin of the Roman Republican
age found there. For want of sufficient material other native
sites, at Rastrick and at Cleckheaton, can be assigned only
to the later Roman period. But not long after the close
of Trajan’s reign, certain hoards were buried in a
district where Roman military sites are not recognised to
exist. From Sowerby Bridge come two, and High Greenwood
in Heptonstall has produced another. In absence of further
information the suggestion might stand that the coins were
hidden by natives alarmed at the new road-building in the
district, which took place soon after A.D. 125 as will appear.
A scrap of grey pottery from Lominot seems good evidence
for an occupation of this spot near the Roman road between
A.D. 80 and A.D. 120; but a coin of Nero from an allotment
lying north of the Colne and east of Bradley Mills, near
Huddersfield, may have been dropped near the river by accident.
From Haigh Cross, between Slack and Fixby, comes a coin
of Vespasian.
© Copyright of Kirklees
Museums and Galleries
|
