A ROMAN COIN AND A PROBABLE ROMAN
ROAD THROUGH MORLEY OR GILDERSOME © Charles Soderlund 02/23
ROAD THROUGH MORLEY OR GILDERSOME © Charles Soderlund 02/23
Last year the following two articles appeared in the Morley Family History Group's publication, Cameo. The articles were the result of Mr Dean Edwards', a detectorist from Gildersome, discovery of a roman coin near Dean Beck. Mr. Edwards recounts this experience in his story, below. The second article, by Mr. Soderlund, speculates on the find and provides a condensed report on the latest discoveries regarding a Roman Road through the same area.
Just Roman Around With My Metal Detector by Dean Edwards
It happened last week on a typically windy February day near Dean Beck on the Gildersome-Morley border. The grass was actually getting a bit too long now but the day before I'd found a nice cap badge from the Royal Army Medical Corps of WWII so I thought I'd do a search of that area to see what else I could find; another cap badge would be nice, I love those. I've learnt how to use my detector pretty well over the last few years and I got a sweet signal in the long grass that I suspected and hoped would be a coin. At the bottom of my neat plug, about 4 inches down was something round and dark. Round, but not perfectly round like a modern coin, kind of, just not quite perfect. It was thick and heavy, and I could make out a right facing bust of a man with strong features and a laurel crown. “Mmmm, maybe George III” was my first thought but it didn't fit. Too big for a halfpenny, too small for a penny and not round, not perfectly round.
It dawned on me that the thing I thought I would never find on my permission I had actually found. It was a roman coin, a Dupondius to be exact. This means "2 pounder" in Latin and I believe it is 1/5 of a Denarius. On the bust side is the face of Emperor Domitian (AD 81-96). Viewed by some, who maybe sought to decry his reputation, as a despot and controlling autocrat. Loved by the Roman people and the military he was hated by the senate. Emperor Domitian constantly curtailed the powers of the senate and it made him unpopular with them and would later be his undoing. His time was one of war on the far edges of his empire, including what the Romans called "Caledonia" but what we know as Scotland. Maybe this coin was dropped by a Roman soldier on his way there. He was assassinated by court officials later in his reign, not the first emperor to go this way and not the last either but a sad end to a reign which saw successful military campaigns in Dacia (now Romania and Moldova) and also in Britain. Some chroniclers and historians argue that Emperor Domitian's administration skills laid the foundations for a stable Roman Empire for many years to come.
It dawned on me that the thing I thought I would never find on my permission I had actually found. It was a roman coin, a Dupondius to be exact. This means "2 pounder" in Latin and I believe it is 1/5 of a Denarius. On the bust side is the face of Emperor Domitian (AD 81-96). Viewed by some, who maybe sought to decry his reputation, as a despot and controlling autocrat. Loved by the Roman people and the military he was hated by the senate. Emperor Domitian constantly curtailed the powers of the senate and it made him unpopular with them and would later be his undoing. His time was one of war on the far edges of his empire, including what the Romans called "Caledonia" but what we know as Scotland. Maybe this coin was dropped by a Roman soldier on his way there. He was assassinated by court officials later in his reign, not the first emperor to go this way and not the last either but a sad end to a reign which saw successful military campaigns in Dacia (now Romania and Moldova) and also in Britain. Some chroniclers and historians argue that Emperor Domitian's administration skills laid the foundations for a stable Roman Empire for many years to come.
The Emperor Domitian
For me though, after 2 years of searching, just to stand there and be the first person to hold that coin for nearly 2000 years is an amazing feeling. It clears my head, which we all need from time to time, it gets me thinking of something else other than work, problems, stresses, anxiety. Who dropped it? Were they annoyed? Did they miss out on something they needed like food or clothes because they lost it? Did a Centurion of the great General Agricola drop it whilst marching to engage the Caledonians (Early Scots) in the North? I'll never know, but it's fun to imagine and I am grateful to metal detecting for that "gift.”
If you are a local landowner and are interested in seeing what history is buried beneath us, please feel free to get in touch at [email protected]. I’m fully insured, respectful, neat and tidy.
If you are a local landowner and are interested in seeing what history is buried beneath us, please feel free to get in touch at [email protected]. I’m fully insured, respectful, neat and tidy.
A Second Roman Road through Morley or Gildersome by Charles Soderlund
The recent news of a Roman coin found in the Rooms area of Morley is very exciting and begs the question: how did it come to be there? Almost two thousand years have elapsed since it was minted and Romans were certainly in the north of England shortly thereafter. But was this coin actually dropped by a Roman or, before it was buried, could it have resided in a succession of coin purses through the centuries? Roman coins were used as accepted coinage as late as the 17th century. However, in this case, the lack of excessive wear on both coin faces seems to make this unlikely. If it was a Roman that lost or buried the coin, what were the Romans doing there in the first place. The answer to that is: plenty.
It was very costly to import iron from the south of Britain or the Continent so the Romans were constantly on the lookout for local deposits from which to supply their army's needs. West Yorkshire and especially the high ground between Bradford and Wakefield was awash in readily accessible iron ore and the Bradford to Wakefield Road, thought to be Roman in origin, ran from west to east right through this productive area, Morley and Gildersome included. So there’s little doubt that in the 400 years of their occupation, at one time or another, the Romans thoroughly scoured Morley and Gildersome for iron and other materials. However, today’s leading experts in the field of ancient byways now claim there to be a “probable” chance that a second, previously alleged, Roman road existed going from north to south, either near the spot or within a mile east or west of where Mr. Edwards' coin was found.
The following is intended to summarise information found in the gazetteer of the website The Roads of Roman Britain, pertaining to a road that ran from Manchester, across the Pennines to Leeds and beyond. In 1955, Ivan Margary published a compendium of the latest data relevant to Britain’s Roman roads. In it, 355 roads were described and each was assigned a number. This article is concerned with only the one road described above, “Margary 712”, or as we shall call it M712.
According to The Roads of Roman Britain (RRB), M712 has become the most investigated road in Yorkshire. Though its existence in general had been speculated upon for centuries, it was not until the 1970s that many details of its course were revealed. The Western section from Manchester to the fort at Slack (see the grayscale map above) has been well verified by archaeological evidence and has been found to contain several forts and two villas along its route. Unfortunately, population density between Huddersfield and Leeds has obscured most of the western section of M712.
It was very costly to import iron from the south of Britain or the Continent so the Romans were constantly on the lookout for local deposits from which to supply their army's needs. West Yorkshire and especially the high ground between Bradford and Wakefield was awash in readily accessible iron ore and the Bradford to Wakefield Road, thought to be Roman in origin, ran from west to east right through this productive area, Morley and Gildersome included. So there’s little doubt that in the 400 years of their occupation, at one time or another, the Romans thoroughly scoured Morley and Gildersome for iron and other materials. However, today’s leading experts in the field of ancient byways now claim there to be a “probable” chance that a second, previously alleged, Roman road existed going from north to south, either near the spot or within a mile east or west of where Mr. Edwards' coin was found.
The following is intended to summarise information found in the gazetteer of the website The Roads of Roman Britain, pertaining to a road that ran from Manchester, across the Pennines to Leeds and beyond. In 1955, Ivan Margary published a compendium of the latest data relevant to Britain’s Roman roads. In it, 355 roads were described and each was assigned a number. This article is concerned with only the one road described above, “Margary 712”, or as we shall call it M712.
According to The Roads of Roman Britain (RRB), M712 has become the most investigated road in Yorkshire. Though its existence in general had been speculated upon for centuries, it was not until the 1970s that many details of its course were revealed. The Western section from Manchester to the fort at Slack (see the grayscale map above) has been well verified by archaeological evidence and has been found to contain several forts and two villas along its route. Unfortunately, population density between Huddersfield and Leeds has obscured most of the western section of M712.
The coloured map, below, covers the area between Huddersfield and Leeds, and shows the various proposed routes of M712. Number 1 represents the fort at Slack and number 6 the Bradford and Wakefield Road. Most of the traditional speculation (no. 5) has it that M712 ran to the northeast through Cleckheaton then made a slight bend further east near Gildersome and proceeded through Farnley to Leeds. Unfortunately, there appears to be no hard evidence to support this theory. Recently, LIDAR scans (Light Detection and Ranging, a remote sensing method used to examine the surface of the Earth) revealed a portion of a recently unknown section of a Roman Road near Fixby Hall on Huddersfield Golf Club (no. 2 on map). There was no doubt that Slack was its origin and it appeared to make a slight turn northwards in the direction of Leeds.
This discovery has lead Roman Road scholars and scientists to propose a new “Probable” route for M712 which is divided into two alternatives, though both alternatives may have existed. Near Heckmondwike (no. 3) alternative number 7 leads to Adel, crossing the Aire near Kirkstall Abbey. Meanwhile, alternative number 4 proceeds towards Leeds, either on the west side of Dean Beck in Gildersome or along the east side in Morley, near to or along the 621 motorway. From there it was mostly a straight shot into Leeds.
The supposed destination of the road from Slack to Leeds went through Thorner, northeast of Leeds, and from there to Tadcaster. The RRB website says this about the road through Leeds:
This discovery has lead Roman Road scholars and scientists to propose a new “Probable” route for M712 which is divided into two alternatives, though both alternatives may have existed. Near Heckmondwike (no. 3) alternative number 7 leads to Adel, crossing the Aire near Kirkstall Abbey. Meanwhile, alternative number 4 proceeds towards Leeds, either on the west side of Dean Beck in Gildersome or along the east side in Morley, near to or along the 621 motorway. From there it was mostly a straight shot into Leeds.
The supposed destination of the road from Slack to Leeds went through Thorner, northeast of Leeds, and from there to Tadcaster. The RRB website says this about the road through Leeds:
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Until relatively recently, the only evidence for this supposed route in the 28 miles between Fixby Ridge and Thorner came from Leeds. Edward Parsons, writing in 1834, recorded that “it traversed the centre of Leeds in a line a little to the east of Briggate and its line is traceable in the neighbourhood of Morley and Gildersome” (Parsons, 1834, p.18). Parsons also noted that, in 1745, “an ancient pavement, strongly cemented” was discovered during the excavation of a cellar on Briggate in Leeds (Parsons, 1834, p.22) and, in the early 19th century, on the bank of the R. Aire, workmen uncovered what was taken to be a Roman ford “composed of a substance known only to that people, wonderfully hard and compact…”, presumably concrete (ibid.). The rectangular earthwork at Quarry Hill, Leeds, formerly known as Wall Flat, marked on the 1st edition OS map as “site of a supposed Roman camp” was entirely built over by 1851 (Faull, 1981, p.161).
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Until further direct evidence is revealed, the case for a second Roman road passing through Morley or Gildersome remains compelling but inconclusive. As to the matter of Mr Edwards' coin, the probability of a Roman road near to the site of its discovery increases the odds that it was lost or buried by a Roman.
All the information in the road article comes from The Roads of Roman Britain website:
http://roadsofromanbritain.org/gazetteer/yorkshire/rr712.html
All the information in the road article comes from The Roads of Roman Britain website:
http://roadsofromanbritain.org/gazetteer/yorkshire/rr712.html