Tynemouth Priory, Romano-British timber-built settlement

The settlement, interpreted as a small hut, is represented by the excavated incomplete outline of a shallow 'ring-groove', at most 12 inches wide and six inches deep, cut into the rock surface. There were no post-impressions visible in the trench but the internal diameter of the hut is estimated as about 15 feet. The excavator considered this hut too small to be pre-Roman Iron Age, and too close to the more substantial, early Iron Age timber-built settlement at Tynemouth priory for them to be in contemporary use. The nearest parallel for the structure is at Marden. The high concentration of Romano-British pottery in this area, together with a late 2nd century pottery rim sherd found amongst occupation debris in the hut, indicates a probable Romano-British (or Roman Iron Age) date for the site. The Roman pottery forms "a homogeneous group of the last two or three decades of the second century A.D.". SCHEDULED ANCIENT MONUMENT