Episode 4 of the Archaeotea Podcast is now available free to download. This latest episode focuses on the Iron Age and Roman farmstead at Great Woolden Hall in Salford. This was excavated between 1986 and 1988 by the Greater Manchester Archaeological Unit (GMAU). It has become one of the type sites for lowland late prehistoric…
2019 marks the tenth anniversary of the Centre for Applied Archaeology at the University of Salford. To celebrate this landmark I’ll be looking back at some of our key sites over the next 12 months. As an early treat I’m making freely available a pdf of our ‘Archaeology for All’ community volume which we published…
Archaeological research takes time, especially the post-excavation process. Thus, for this final instalment in my survey of Salford’s early past I’m returning to one of the two Roman rural settlements known from within the city: Barton. For there is now fresh evidence which throws a light on life and death in Roman Salford. A cold,…
December 2017 marks a very personal milestone which has prompted some personal reflection on my part. On the 15th December 1987 I started my first full-time archaeological post as a supervisor for the Greater Manchester Archaeological Unit (GMAU). I’d had archaeological work before, as a paid digger and supervisor on a number of excavations whilst…
Thousands of workers’ houses were built to accommodate the city’s working population in the 19th century. The poor quality of those houses and their over-crowded conditions made Salford notorious for its slums. The types of housing that existed during this period included double-depth terraces, some of which had yards and outshuts to their…
One of the ways in which the medieval world was radically different from early 21st century Britain was the manner in which religion was woven into everyday life. Salford was no different. Religious belief expressed itself in many ways during this period but one of the more ostentatious was through the donation of land…
The period after the collapse of Roman government in the early 5th century until the Norman Conquest in 1066 is usually referred to as the Early Medieval era. The term reflects a period of transition brought about by the ending of Roman rule, Saxon migration and later Viking raiding and settlement from northern Europe.…
The Roman period ditch at Great Woolden Farm, Salford, during excavation in 1988. The heavily urbanised landscape that is Greater Manchester is not an obvious place to look for or expect Romano-British landscapes to survive. A brief look at the distribution maps for Roman rural settlement in southern Britain would seem to support this, with…
Three Roman roads crossed the Salford landscape. These avoided Chat Moss, the large tract of raised bog which dominated several square kilometers of the northern bank of the River Irwell, in Salford. They represent the earliest Roman activity in the area. Their construction coincides with the establishment of the Roman fort at Manchester. This was…
Salford was the first area within Greater Manchester where Iron Age settlement was positively identified through modern excavation. This was in 1986 when a cropmark of a double-ditched enclosure was spotted and photographed by Prof Nick Higham of Manchester University. Evaluation trenching later that year confirmed the presence of early ditches. Since then Iron Age enclosures have…
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