STREET HOUSES:

Street Houses on the old Roman Road between Boulby and Skinningrove has had excavation work carried out on the Long Cairn or Long Barrow which was a burial ground for Bronze Age individuals .On past excavations it was found   that the   burial mound consisted of a core of clay surrounded by pebbles. The surviving part of the mound contained three collard urns (but only one was complete enough for examination), also two accessory cups and twenty jet buttons.
But what was very interesting and unexpected was the bronze age mound had been erected on a much earlier burial monument, dating to the Neolithic period. Radio-carbon dating give an average date of around 2770 bc.

Excavations at Street Houses

Back in 2004 Steve Sherlock -- freelance archaeologist decided to do some fieldwork for his PhD, aerial photographs told him there might be an Iron Age settlement near Loftus, he asked the farmer if he could have a look and Teesside Archaeology Society came to help, what they found was very significant:
Steve wrote an article for The Town Crier and the full article can be found on page 5 of issue 113. Here are a two extracts from that article:

A third season of excavations were undertaken in the Summer of 2007 to resolve some of the questions relating to the Anglo-Saxon cemetery that overlies an Iron Age settlement.   In addition to this it was proposed to excavate an Iron Age hearth--saltern associated with the manufacture of salt from seawater.   The proposed strategy was to excavate two trenches to the north and south of the earlier excavations.   This is a summary of the prehistoric features and finds from 2007 and will conclude with some information about the Anglo-Saxon cemetery.

The Anglo-Saxon Cemetery

Excavations in 2007 were able to recognise the extent of the cemetery by its unique plan.   The cemetery is within the Iron Age enclosure, but it is defined by a row of graves, aligned E-W that form a square with an opening to the south.   The northern and southern rows were essentially a double row with an inner line of graves matching the outer.   The east and west sides of the cemetery are a single row of graves.   The cemetery is approximately 36m square with a total of 109 burials.   Based upon the stunning finds from the site the people who were buried at Street Houses certainly had access to some of the best craftworkers in Anglo-Saxon England.

The photo shows three of the brooches and two beads found at the site.

With kind permission of Brian A Smitt