Iron Age Saltworking on the Yorkshire Coast at Street House, Loftus, Cleveland

Abstract

This report presents the first evidence for structures associated with saltworking in Yorkshire. The report concerns an Iron Age settlement at Street House that commences in the Later Iron Age and continues into the second century ad. One interesting feature is how the site evolved to incorporate saltworking at an altitude of 170 metres. The parallels for saltworking in Fenland and the Dorset coast are discussed in terms of materials, methods and technology. One consequence of this is the question of how widely was the product distributed if briquetage is found up to 60 km inland from the Yorkshire coast at Rock Castle, Gilling.

Keywords:

• saltworking
• Iron Age
• Street House
• north-east Yorkshire

We are grateful to Alistair Hill for his contribution on the grain impressions on the seeds and the anonymous referee who commented upon the text. Brian Smith drew the plans and Louise Hutchinson illustrated the fragments of briquetage. We are also grateful to Charlotte O’Brien for identifying the charcoal within the briquetage rod and David Pybus for commenting on the coastal erosion near Street House. Steve Sherlock is grateful to Elaine Morris who discussed her Lincolnshire work, Peter Cox for discussion about saltworking at Kimmeridge and Roy McBride for commenting on the Roman sherd from Street House. The production of this report has been assisted by financial grants from the CBA Yorkshire (King Award) and a grant from the Yorkshire Archaeological Society to illustrate the briquetage vessels.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Stephen J Sherlock

Steve Sherlock has been a professional archaeologist for over 30 years working in North-East England. His research areas have been focused upon the Late prehistoric-Early medieval periods in north east Yorkshire. He has published his work widely in regional journals, conference proceedings and recently has written two Tees Archaeology monographs (2012).

Correspondence to: Stephen J. Sherlock Elm Lea, Malton Road, York YO31 9LT. Email: [email protected]

Blaise Vyner

Blaise Vyner has researched the archaeology of North Yorkshire and the Tees Valley for many years. He is particularly interested in landscape history and prehistoric archaeology and is engaged in a study of the archaeology of Fylingdales moor, North-East Yorkshire.

Correspondence to: Blaise Vyner. Email: [email protected]