The arc of coast
betwixt Saltburn and Filey was once dotted with Roman signal stations, built in
the second half of the 4th century to warn of the threat of foreign
invasion from the continent. Perhaps the best known of these was the site atop
the heights of Hunt Cliff a little to the east of Saltburn.
Identified for
what it was in 1862 and first excavated in 1911-12, it has since tumbled into
the North Sea – leaving only a few artefacts to tell the story of its all-too-brief
existence. Enough of it remained in 1911-12 to estimate its size at around
105ft x 105ft square, it being of rough sandstone construction with, likely, a
wooden look-out tower at its centre. Coinage indicated that it was probably in
use around 360-400 AD, before being abandoned by the Romans as they deserted
our shores.
What is most
remarkable about the site, however, was the discovery (in 1923) in the site’s
well of fourteen human skeletons of varying age and size, many of which bore
weapon marks. The individuals were certainly not soldiers, and this has led to
the conclusion that the final occupants of the old signal station – most likely
a group of Romanised British refugees who took over the site after the Romans
left – were butchered in a rival attack of some sort.
There is every
reason to suspect that it was the Anglo-Saxon invaders themselves who destroyed
the site and slaughtered the occupants as they made their tentative in-roads
into their new land at some point in the mid 400s AD.
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