Act 3

Roman Kirkdale and Beadlam

The lands which would become the lands of Kirkdale and Chirchebi in Roman and Pagan times, 71 CE to 580 CE

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The lands around Kirkdale were stable and settled for much of their early history, nestled at the edge of the North Yorkshire high lands. The association of the estate lands where our family originated, with Roman villas of Beadlam and Hovingham and the regional centre of Isurium Brigantum, as well as with the eventual provincial capital of Eboracum, means that we can continue our story to Roman imperial Britain

 

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Perspective

It was those small families who cleared Farndale from the early 1200s who we met in Act 1, at the same time that names started to be used in a way that would soon become hereditary, who allow us to begin to recount stories of individuals and their experiences. Before that time it is impossible to identify individuals other than the most noble or royal families. Names of ordinary folk were just not being used, still less recorded, in a way which would allow us to claim direct links.

However because we know that our family emerged into recorded history in a distinct place, a wooded valley in the dales flowing south from the North York Moors, we are able to continue to explore the likely path of our ancestors further back. We know that by the Norman Conquest, the wild forested lands of Farndale were part of the great estate of Chirchebi and within that estate there were settled lands nestled into the northeast corner of the Vale of York as the agricultural plains met the lower dales. The settled lands were focused around the place that later came to be known as Kirkdale. So although the name Kirkdale will not emerge until the seventh century CE, in the Farndale Story we can call those lands Kirkdaleland.

Before the Romans arrived and expanded their interests to include Kirkdaleland by perhaps about 100 CE, we should restrict our ambition to define this family’s origins, as we did in Act 2, as emerging from the primeval swamp of the stone, bronze and iron ages. However after the Romans incorporated Kirkdaleland into its Empire, those ancestral lands became a place of settlement, agriculture and stability. There is every reason to suppose that our family story shares the story of Kirkdaleland from the time those lands were tamed by the Romans.

Our family story will soon follow the trail from the aftermath of Empire Britain to the birth of the English nation, the spread of Christianity, and the remarkable ambit of York which will soon become a powerhouse of intellectual achievement which will disseminate knowledge and teaching techniques via the court of Charlemagne across Europe. When we pick up the story again after 1200, we will meander our way through Plantagenet England, to the industrial age, which we will experience from the heart of the lands of mills and mines. The family will spread to become farmers across the new worlds of the British empire and will fight in the terrible wars of the twentieth century.

Before we embark on that journey we should reflect though, that this family’s journey is only a perspective on one family’s travels through its own history, which happens to closely follow the fortunes of England and later Britain. There were countless families in other places across the globe following different histories, with equally exciting stories of other national paths. One route into the global perspective of world history is the podcast series by William Dalrymple and Anita Anand, Empire, which although touching on the history of the British Empire is far more an exploration about multiple civilisations and world history. For instance William Dalrymple has explored the Ashokan Empire of India, which was also within the Roman ambit, a theme which he explores in his 2024 book, the Golden Road.

As we follow our own path of course we find a route through our own national experience, but when we use our twenty first century eyes, we have the privilege of understanding that story with a global perspective. As the Roman world touched the North York Moors, it was also within the experience of remarkable civilisations such as India, which would spread its numbers and conception of zero, as well as its gold, back westwards.  

So now, we can continue the story of this particular family, by finding ourselves in the midst of a western empire, whose stretch had reached the agricultural lands of Kirkdaleland.

 

Scene 1 – Arrival

Empire

The Romans came to Britian, to stay, from 43 CE when the Emperor Claudius (41 to 54 CE) rapidly annexed the south and east of the country. The Romans found diversity in those who they subjugated, with differing views regarding the benefits of Roman occupation. The Romans adopted a policy of exploitation of internal conflicts between different groups.

Initially the Romans didn’t venture north of the Humber and Don, but traded with the Parisii, though the Brigantes tended to remain more hostile.

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Claudius’ successor was Nero (54 to 68 CE) who was less enthusiastic about the costs of maintaining an army in Britain.

Nero was succeeded by Vespasian (69 to 79 CE) at the end of the Year of the Four Emperors, by then commander of the Syrian Army, who had served in the army in Britain under Claudius. He appointed Gneaus Julius Agricola (40 to 93 CE) as his general. Agricola extended the Roman occupation across large swathes of northern Britain, well into Scotland. Agricola’s biography, The Agricola, was written by his son in law Tactitus.

Roman experience around the Mediterranean was of city states and centralised groups, who were susceptible to defeat on the death or subjugation of their leaders. However in northern Britain they encountered a region where large stable political units were less usual. The Roamn referred to the people who lived in the Vale of York, the moors and the dales, and across the Pennines, as the Brigantes. They appear to have treated them as a centralised group, but this was probably a mistake. The Brigantes may have been a loose grouping of “hill people”, which the Romans might have mistaken as a tribal name.

Claudius had formed an alliance with Queen Cartimandua, who Tacitus referred to as Queen of the Brigantes. She and her husband Venutius were, according to Tacitus, loyal to Rome. They seem to have had their base at an old iron age fortification at Stanwick near modern Scotch Corner. In 51 CE, Caratacus, leader of the Catuvellaunians (of roughly the place of modern Bedfordshire), had sought sanctuary with Cartimandua, but she had handed him over to the Romans.

When Cartimandua had a relationship with her armour Bearer, Vellocatus, Venutius began a civil war against her in 57 CE but Cartimandua was protected by the Roman Ninth Legion. In 69 CE, during a period of instability under Emperor Nero, Venutius attacked again and Cartimandua fled leaving Venutius in control of the region and in conflict with Rome.

In 71 CE, Nero’s successor Vespasian sent an army under Quintus Petillius Ceralius to march north and occupy Brigantes and Parisii territory. The Ninth Legion erected a large camp near where Malton (northeast of York) stands today. They also built a fort at Roecliffe, near to modern Aldborough, which was occupied between about 71 to 85 CE. Roecliffe was one of a string of forts along the line of the modern A1, which provided the main Roman transport corridor.

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A large military camp was constructed by the Romans as Eboracum (modern day York) in 71 CE.

Urban settlements grew around the Roman fortifications at Eboracum and Malton. Eboracum in time became the Roman provincial capital. The Emperors Hadrian, Septimius Severus, and Constantius I all held court in Eboracum during their various campaigns. Constantine the Great was proclaimed emperor there. To the south Roman urban settlements grew around fortifications at Calcaria (Tadcaster) and Danum (Doncaster).

Agricola was made consul and governor of Britannia in 77 CE.

Domitian (81 to 96 CE), who succeeded Titus (79 to 81 CE), completed Agricola’s campaigns, but was distracted by imperial interests elsewhere, so withdrew from the areas furthest to the north, which would lead in time to the reconciliation of Roman occupation to the wall which would later be fortified as Hadrian’s Wall.

 

Scene 2 – Ancestral Lands

The family ancestral lands of Kirkdaleland

The lands of Kirkdaleland are only about 25 kilometres north of the major Roman regional capital, Eboracum (York). Eboracum would have become increasingly accessible from Kirkdaleland during the Roman period, with the construction of new roads.

Thurkilsti was a pre Roman road from the North York Moors which passed close to the west side of Kirkdale and on to Welburn, just south of the Kirkdale ford and to Hovingham where it later joined the Roman roads.

During the Roman period, Kirkdaleland was in the Roman hinterland. By the late Roman period, Kirkdaleland was probably part of a stable, well regulated area with dispersed settlement, probably dependent on major villa based estates such as at Beadlam and Hovingham.

The significance of Ryedale was reinforced by an extensive Roman road network. Wade’s Causeway ran from Malton across Wheeldale Moor towards Whitby. A Roman road ran from Malton to the Vale of York via the Coxwold Gilling gap where it joined Hambleton Street which stretched from Bernicia to Lincoln.

The Roman villa at Beadlam, only 2 kilometres west of Kirkdale, was discovered in the 1960s. The region around Beadlam was administered from the Roman town of Isurium Brigantum (modern Aldborough, near Boroughbridge).

So by the later Roman period, Kirkdaleland was part of a stable and well regulated region, in close proximity to the regional capital of Eboracum. Only two kilometres to the west of Kirkdale the Roman villa of Beadlam consisted of about thirty rooms, probably constructed in about 300 CE and occupied until about 400 CE. The fourth century CE was a time when elite Romano Britains were investing in private villas. An enclosure ditch and walled compounds for livestock pre-dated the villa, which suggests the site was in use earlier.

It’s possible that any Roman presence at Kirkdale might have been related to a place for the burial of the dead from Beadlam.

Hovingham was a Roman villa, perhaps on a palatial scale, about 10km southwest from Kirkdale. Hovingham might have had very extensive holdings, which could have embraced a wider estate including Beadlam and Kirkdaleland.

Villas at Appleton le Street, Blandsby Park and Langton indicate that Ryedale was a major agricultural producer in the Roman period. The landscape of the Vale of Pickering was likely well settled, and this might have extended into the rural hinterland. Agricultural produce would have been required at significant scale to support the northern Roman army.

There was a pre Roman road from the North York Moors which passed close to the west side of Kirkdale and on to Welburn, just south of the Kirkdale ford and on to Hovingham.

In the Roman period, the area around Kirkdale probably included a small number of dominant settlements in this area of rural hinterland. The population would have been within the military and administrative orbits of the Roman interests.

Beadlam lay within the region formerly controlled by the kingdom of the Brigantes. After the Roman conquest, the region was administered from the newly built Roman town of Isurium Brigantum (now Aldborough). Isurium was a strategic regional capital on the main transport corridor of Dere Street and along that transport corridor to the south was Calcaria (Tadcaster), Lagentium (Castleford) and Danum (Doncaster).

 

A Roman Port Key

One day in the second or third century CE, a Roman soldier dropped his arm purse, close to a prehistoric cairn, above and overlooking Farndale. It was later found in 1849 and is currently to be seen displayed in the British Museum. When the Roman looked over Farndale it remained a wild forested place.

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Roman copper alloy arm-purses were worn by soldiers. British examples include finds from Corbridge, South Shields, a site near Housesteads on Hadrian’s Wall, Colchester, and this one found at Farndale. As it was found above Farndale, it doesn’t evidence Roman activity within the dale, but it does suggest patrolling across high moorland tracks, overlooking the dale. Go and see this purse in the British Museum and you’ll be in direct contact with the land of our ancestors, two millennia ago.

 

Scene 3 – The End of Empire

Breakup

In 410 CE Rome was sacked by the Visigoths from eastern Europe and Roman control of Britain ceased by about this time. Constantine declared emperor in York reestablished the Roman empire in the East centred on Byzantium.

The Romano-British kingdom rapidly broke up into smaller kingdoms and York became the capital of the British kingdom of Ebrauc.

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Go Straight to Act 4 – Anglo Saxon Kirkdale

or

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Before you do that, you can explore more detail about the Roman history of the region:

·       Beadlam

·       Hovingham

·       Isurium Brigantum (Aldborough)

·       Eboracum (York)

·       The Roman Arm Purse

If your interest is in Kirkdale then I suggest you visit the following pages of the website.

·       Introduction to Kirkdale

·       Kirkdale Cave

·       Roman Kirkdale

·       The community in Anglo Saxon Times

·       The church in Anglo Saxon Times

·       The Kirkdale Anglo Saxon artefacts

·       The community in Anglo Saxon Times

·       The church in Anglo Saxon Scandinavian Times

·       Orm Gamalson

·       The Sundial

You will find a chronology, together with source material at the Kirkdale Page.