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M62 - Your Local History
A lot of finds were uncovered during the archaeological evaluation carried out for the M62 Junction 6 Improvement scheme so we thought it would be nice to provide an interactive website so you can see what we found.
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Don't Cross or Walk Along Motorways
The Highways Agency aims to make more people aware of the dangers of walking or crossing our motorway. We have launched a poster and radio campaign aimed at 16-25yr olds. Hopefully with our hard hitting posters, our message will come across.
Educating tomorrow's drivers
See how we are driving through key messages about safety on our network for the drivers of tomorrow.
Meet the Ancestors
Find out about the history of roads and the work the Agency does to preserve archaeological remains.
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Later Prehistory
The A30 route across Goss Moor is overlooked by the hillfort of Castle-an-Dinas. The form and scale of the fort tell us that it was probably built in the Iron Age, perhaps about 300-200 BC.
In local folklore Castle-an-Dinas hillfort is associated with tales of the mythical King Arthur; it was reputedly the place from which he rode out to hunt on Tregoss Moor.
We found the remains of two roundhouses, about 800m apart, in the Belowda area. The finds from these sites, and the radiocarbon dates, show that the houses were lived in during the Late Iron Age and early Roman period (c 250 BC - AD 100). This means they were probably occupied at the same time as the nearby Castle-an-Dinas hillfort. Both roundhouses were 12 metres in diameter, and they had low dry stone walls with an east-facing doorway. The roofs would have been made of thatch. Charred fragments of heather and straw were found, both of which are suitable for thatching. Around each house was a gully to collect rain-water from the eaves.
Truro College Archaeology Foundation Course students worked on the Belowda roundhouses during a training dig organised by the A30 project team. The group of 12 students were taking part in a one-week training excavation hosted by our professional archaeologists from Oxford Archaeology. Finds from the excavations included pottery cooking jars and small amounts of charred grain. This suggests that the houses were lived in, at least for a short time. They may have been used as seasonal dwellings.
Our archaeologists have studied ancient plant remains, preserved in waterlogged conditions in a stream valley to the south-east of Castle-an-Dinas, close to the Belowda roundhouses. These show that the area was a generally damp, open, moorland environment, not very attractive for agriculture. Nevertheless, as a result of the A30 excavations we can now say that the area around the hillfort was inhabited and farmed, at least on a seasonal or short-term basis, in the late Iron Age and Roman periods.
