Fesrival Season

BCA Festival 21/22 July 2026 ‘Archaeology and Nature’:

Cragend Farm Heritage Site July 2026

 

The Festival of Archaeology at Cragend Farm is unique because visitors can experience both ‘heritage and the natural landscape’ in the same place. The event demonstrates that archaeology is not just about digging up ancient objects, it is about understanding the long relationship between people, nature, technology, and the landscape.

 

This combination of historical discoveries, preserved Victorian engineering, and the beautiful Northumberland countryside makes Cragend Farm an ideal location for celebrating the theme ‘Archaeology and Nature.’

 

This is the briefing we wrote for our visitors to help them understand basics about archaeology and its many layers, and to accompany the festival here at Cragend Farm.

 

Archaeology is the study of the human past through the physical remains that people have left behind. Rather than relying only on written records, archaeologists examine objects, structures, landscapes, and even environmental evidence to understand how people lived, worked, and interacted.

 

These remains can include:

 

• Artifacts such as pottery, tools, coins, jewellery, and clothing.
• Buildings and monuments, from houses to temples.
• Human and animal remains.
• Environmental evidence such as pollen, seeds, and soil layers.

 

Archaeologists carefully excavate sites, record the location of every find, and use scientific techniques like radiocarbon dating, DNA analysis, and isotope analysis to build a picture of past societies.

 

Archaeology differs from history in that:

 

‘History’ primarily studies the past through written records.

‘Archaeology’ studies the past through material evidence, making it especially important for periods or communities that left few or no written records.

 

Today, archaeology increasingly works alongside digital archives, genealogy, and historical records. For example, an archaeologist might uncover a burial site, while census records, newspapers, and family documents help identify the individuals and reconstruct their lives. Together, these sources can reveal stories that might otherwise have remained forgotten.

 

 

The landscapes around us are not simply natural or man-made. They are the result of thousands of years of people, plants, animals, weather, and changing ways of life interacting with one another.

 

Archaeology helps us understand those relationships.

 

It can show us why woodland grows where it does, how farming has changed rivers and soils, where species once lived, and how people adapted to changing climates. That knowledge can help us protect important places while creating healthier landscapes for the future.

 

Throughout the Festival, we will be sharing events, stories, and resources that bring archaeology and nature together.

 

Cragend Farm has an abundance of examples of Archaeology and Nature:

 

Cragend Farm's ‘Festival of Archaeology’ is especially interesting because it perfectly matches the 2026 theme of British Council of Archaeology ‘Archaeology and Nature.’

 

The event shows how people, the landscape, and the natural environment have influenced one another over hundreds of years. The farm itself is a place where archaeology is still revealing new discoveries, making it a living example of how history and nature are connected.

 

One reason the event is so fascinating is that Cragend Farm contains evidence from many different periods of history. The site began as a ‘Celtic Camp’, with evidence of Roman activity, later becoming a Border Reiver settlement, and was transformed in the Victorian era by Lord William Armstrong into an innovative model farm powered by water-driven hydraulic engineering. Visitors can explore how the natural landscape, especially its water supply, made these developments possible.

 

The Lack of Scientific Dating

The Victorians had no way of knowing how old a site actually was. Radiocarbon dating was not invented until the mid-20th century. The Three-Age System Gap: Although the concept of the Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages was emerging in the 19th century, it was not yet refined. The Default Label: "Celtic" became a convenient catch-all term for anything that was clearly ancient but obviously pre-Roman. As a result, Bronze Age, Iron Age, and even some Neolithic sites were all lumped together under the same Celtic label.

 

In professional archaeology, ‘Celtic Camp’ is an outdated, popular term historically used by antiquarians and early 20th-century surveyors to describe prehistoric fortified enclosures, known today as hillforts. Modern archaeologists rarely use the word "camp" for these sites because it incorrectly implies a temporary military outpost, whereas excavations have proven they were permanent, highly organized tribal centres and farming settlements.

 

Chronological Timeline

While old maps labelled these structures as "Celtic," their usage actually spans thousands of years, predating the historically defined Celtic cultures. They generally fall into the following broad phases:

 

Late Bronze Age Origin (c. 1300 – 800 BCE): The earliest versions, often called proto-hillforts, began emerging as simple, single ditch-and-bank (univallate) enclosures.

 

The Iron Age Florescence (c. 800 – 50 BCE): This is the peak era for these structures. During the Hallstatt and La Tène periods, communities significantly expanded the sites into massive, multi-layered (multivallate) defensive networks with complex, in-turned entryways.

 

The ‘Oppida’  Urban Phase (c. 250 – 50 BCE): In the Late Iron Age, some "camps" evolved into massive, urban-scale tribal capitals spanning hundreds of hectares, such as Stanwick in England or Heidengraben in Germany.

 

Abandonment and Reuse (c. 43 CE onward): Most sites were abandoned or systematically dismantled following Roman conquests. However, some were briefly reoccupied as Romano-Celtic temple sites or defensive strongholds during the early medieval period.

 

The Setting: Environmental and Landscape Context

 

The placement of a ‘Celtic Camp’ in the landscape was highly strategic, serving economic, agricultural, and social functions:

 

UPLAND DEFENSIVE CORES ----> Dominates high topography (Hills, ridges, promontories)

 

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MID-SLOPE BOUNDARIES   ----> Ringed by concentric earthwork banks & deep ditches

 

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LOWLAND AGRARIAN ZONES  ----> Overlooks river valleys, pasturelands, & "Celtic fields"

 

Topography: These sites are almost universally located on high, naturally defensible landforms. Typical locations include hilltops, prominent ridges, coastal promontories, or gravel islands surrounded by marshland (such as ‘Stonea Camp’ in the Cambridgeshire Fens).

 

The Earthwork Architecture: The setting is defined by its massive footprint on the landscape. Steep slopes were intentionally enhanced by cutting deep concentric ditches and throwing up the soil to create high earthen ramparts or timber-laced stone walls.

 

The Agricultural Landscape: They did not exist in isolation. These sites were the focal hub of vast, interconnected rural networks. They are consistently located immediately adjacent to running water sources, fertile lowlands, and extensive ‘Celtic fields’ the signature patchwork of small, square agricultural plots used for crop cultivation and livestock grazing.

 

Internal Settlement Setup: Far from being open fields for soldiers to pitch tents, the interiors of these enclosures were densely packed with clustered timber or stone roundhouses, deep grain-storage pits, and raised granaries, highlighting their primary function as permanent agricultural communities.

 

Tène culture:

The bearers of the La Tène culture were the people known as Celts or Gauls to ancient ethnographers. Most of us know about Asterix!

 

It is named after the type site of La Tène on the north side of Lake Neuchâtel in Switzerland, where thousands of objects had been deposited in the lake, as was discovered after the water level dropped in 1857 (due to the Jura water correction).

 

La Tène on the north side of Lake Neuchâtel in Switzerland, where thousands of objects had been deposited in the lake, as was discovered after the water level dropped in 1857 (due to the Jura water correction).You said: La Tène on the north side of Lake Neuchâtel in Switzerland, where thousands of objects had been deposited in the lake, as was discovered after the water level dropped in 1857.

 

La Tène is a major European Iron Age type site on Lake Neuchâtel, Switzerland, famous for yielding thousands of preserved Celtic weapons and metalwork after a drop in water level.

 

Site Overview and Discovery Location:

Northern shore of Lake Neuchâtel near the River Thielle outflow. Discovery: Exposed in 1857 via a drop in water level caused by early water management work.

 

Significance: Gave its name to the La Tène culture (c. 450–50 BCE).

Key Findings & Artifacts: Thousands of iron swords, scabbards, and spears.

Structures: Remains of timber bridges and buildings along a former riverbed.

 

Interpretation:

Regarded as a sacred ritual site for displaying or sacrificing weapons.

 

Jura water correction was a massive, multi-decade hydrological engineering project designed to stop catastrophic flooding and drain vast marshlands in the "Seeland" region of Switzerland.

 

Before this project, the Aare, Emme, and Thielle rivers regularly overflowed, turning the lowlands between Lake Neuchâtel, Lake Biel, and Lake Morat into a swampy, disease-ridden floodplain

 

In popular understanding, La Tène describes the culture and art of the ancient Celts, a term that is firmly entrenched in the popular understanding, but it is considered controversial by modern scholarship.

The archaeological period is now mostly divided into four sub-periods, following Paul Reinecke.

Tischler (1885)	Reinecke (1902)	Date
La Tène I	La Tène A	450–380 BC
La Tène I	La Tène B	380–250 BC
La Tène II	La Tène C	250–150 BC
La Tène III	La Tène D	150–1 BC

 

Iron Age Celts

Steep slopes, a high wall and deep ditch helped keep the Celts safe in their homes. Farmers lived on the land they farmed.

 

Celtic Camping Mesolithic Era to Iron Age - Celtic Camping.  

From about 1500 BC, further wave of Celtic people arrived in the area. People who could work in metal, far more effectively.

 

The Celts were not a single, unified empire, but rather a network of related tribal peoples originating in Central Europe. Beginning around 500 BC, Celtic language and culture reached Ireland through gradual trade and cultural exchange, eventually becoming firmly established across the island.

 

Modern genetic studies confirm that the Gaelic Irish heavily descend from earlier Bronze Age populations who adopted Celtic culture and language.

 

Scottish Celts are the ancient and modern groups who share a distinct linguistic and cultural heritage tracing back to the Iron Age. Historically, they emerged from the blending of the Gaels, the Picts, and the Britons, and their vibrant legacy lives on today through the preservation of Scottish Gaelic, unique regional traditions, and world-renowned artistic designs.

 

Tribal peoples settling in Britain.

 

Lordenshaws in Rothbury, Northumberland is an archaeological site that cannot be tied to a single timeframe; instead, it is a multi-layered historic landscape spanning over 5,000 years, from the Neolithic period to the Middle Ages.

 

Located near Rothbury in the Northumberland National Park, the site is a classic prehistoric landscape where different eras sit directly on top of one another. It is opposite and north east of Cragend Farm settlement.

 

The site's rich history unfolds across four distinct phases:

 

1. Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age (c. 4000 – 2000 BCE) Cup and Ring Marks: The oldest features at Lordenshaws are more than 100 decorated sandstone outcrops and boulders. This is one of the largest concentrations of ancient rock art in the United Kingdom. Burial Cairns: This era also left behind a Bronze Age cairn cemetery, including stone-lined cist graves (such as the "Warrior's Graves") where early 19th-century antiquarians uncovered human bones.

 

2. The Iron Age (c. 600 BCE – 43 CE) The Hillfort: This is the "camp" structure that Victorian surveyors like David ‘Dippie’ Dixon mapped. It is a subcircular, high-status settlement fortified by double (and in some places triple) earth-and-stone ramparts and deep ditches. Roundhouses: The interior still contains visible structural depressions where stone-founded circular Celtic roundhouses once stood.

 

3. The Romano-British Period (c. 43 – 410 CE) Settlement Overlap: After the hillfort's primary defensive walls were partially levelled, a later, peaceful Romano-British farming settlement was built directly over the south-eastern defences.

 

4. Medieval to Post-Medieval (c. 1100 CE onward) Deer Park Boundaries: The landscape features a medieval "deer park pale" (a boundary bank and ditch designed to keep deer inside a hunting estate). Later Agriculture: Visible boundary walls, historic tracking paths, and early industrial lead-prospecting pits stretch right into the modern era.

 

The theme of ‘nature and archaeology’ comes to life because the farm demonstrates how humans have adapted to and shaped their environment over centuries. The surrounding geology, rivers, farmland, and woodland influenced where people settled, how they farmed, and how Armstrong later developed revolutionary hydraulic systems powered by water.

 

At the same time, nature continues to preserve and reveal archaeological remains beneath the soil, allowing new discoveries to be made.

 

Cragend Farm is also remarkable because of the variety of archaeological finds uncovered during restoration. Since the farm was purchased in 2011, excavations and careful conservation have revealed:

 

• Victorian engineering artefacts, including giant spanners, pulleys, hydraulic turbines, and parts of the historic weighbridge.
• Everyday farming objects such as milk churns, horseshoes, and agricultural tools.
• Personal belongings including coins, buckles, bottles, knives, forks, and household tins that provide insights into daily life.
• Earlier military objects such as musket balls and cannon roundshot dating to the Border Wars of the 14th–16th centuries.
• AD 40 Roman steel yard weight and early coins from 12^th

 

These finds are valuable because they tell the story of ordinary people as well as great inventors. Small objects like coins, bottles, and tools reveal what people ate, wore, bought, and lost, while the larger engineering remains show how Armstrong introduced advanced technology that changed farming in the Victorian period. Together, they create a continuous story of life at Cragend Farm across many centuries.

 

The natural landscape of the Coquet Valley below Rothbury at Cragend Farm is one of the reasons the site is so important archaeologically.

 

It combines a rich river environment, ancient woodland, farmland, sandstone geology, and wildlife, all of which have influenced how people have lived there for centuries.

 

Some of the key features of the landscape include:

 

The River Coquet: Cragend Farm sits above the River Coquet, one of England's few largely unmodified spate rivers. Its clean, fast-flowing water has supported salmon, trout, otters, kingfishers and other wildlife for centuries. Historically, it helped determine where people settled. The burns, the Debdon Burn and The Blackburn, that run in to the river also supplied water power for Lord Armstrong's hydraulic machinery.

 

Ancient woodland and burns:  The Blackburn forms the eastern boundary of the farm. In spring its banks are carpeted with bluebells, primroses, wild garlic and watercress, creating a rich woodland habitat. The woodland also supports red squirrels, roe deer, geese and many woodland and ground nesting birds.

 

Sandstone crags and rocky hillsides: Around Rothbury the valley narrows between dramatic sandstone outcrops, including those surrounding Cragside. These rocky crags provided building stone for Cragend Farm (from Cragend Quarry) and eventually Cragside, and influenced where settlements, tracks and defensive sites were established.

 

Pasture and traditional farmland: The valley floor contains meadows and grazing land for livestock, while the surrounding slopes form a patchwork of pasture, hedgerows and woodland. Cragend continues this farming tradition with rare-breed cattle, sheep and goats.

 

The wider valley setting: The Coquet Valley is enclosed by the Simonside Hills to the south and the Northumberland hills of The Cheviots to the north and west. It is a peaceful landscape (now) of rolling farmland, wooded riverbanks and open moorland, with the River Coquet winding through its centre.

 

NB Hadrian and Antonine Walls are above and below Cragend Farm and Border Reivers were everywhere in this region.

Why this matters for archaeology?

The landscape has shaped human history at Cragend for thousands of years:

• The river provided fresh water, food, and power for fulling mills.
• Fertile valley soils made farming possible from prehistoric times onwards.
• Sandstone was quarried locally for buildings.
• Woodland supplied timber and fuel. The Rothbury North Forest was up towards the moor to Alnwick.
• The surrounding hills offered natural defence and excellent viewpoints, making the area attractive for early settlements and later Border Reiver activity. It is peppered with fortalice, bastle and peel towers.

 

This close relationship between the environment and human activity is exactly why Cragend Farm is such a fitting venue for the Festival of Archaeology theme of "Archaeology and Nature."

 

The archaeological discoveries at the farm, from Roman and medieval remains to Victorian engineering can all be understood in the context of The Coquet Valley's distinctive natural landscape, showing how people have continually adapted to and worked with the river, woodland and hills over many centuries.

 

And there is more to discover and more to find…