Tynemouth Priory, Early Iron Age timber-built settlement

The settlement is represented by the excavated remains of a single timber-built house, thirty-eight feet in internal diameter. Its solid outside wall of close set uprights had been supported in a trench, up to eighteen inches wide and the same in depth, dug into the rock or sand. The doorway lay in the south where the wall-trench terminated on the east side in a large post-hole. Intermittent and shallow post-holes, concentrically placed at a distance of two feet beyond the wall-trench, are interpreted as supports for eaves-posts, giving the house an overall diameter of forty-six feet. There were no clear occupation remains associated with the house, but some Roman pottery was recovered from above the wall-trench, suggesting that the house had fallen into disuse before the late 2nd century A.D. Native pottery of pre-Roman or Roman Iron Age date was found widely scattered about the site. SCHEDULED ANCIENT MONUMENT