Shielhill South

NN81SW 9 8499 1150.

(Area: NN 850 115) A Roman signal station lies 1,000 yds from NN81SE 8 near a field wall on the NW side of RR 9a.

Excavation by Dr J K St Joseph in autumn 1973 showed that it mentioned 50' in diameter within a ditch about 6' broad, and that the wooden tower, whose post-holes were located, was 11' square. A tiny fragment of native pottery was found.

Information from RCAHMS, 7 November 1973.

The precise site of this signal station could not be located. There are no visible surface remains and the area is currently under plough.

Visited by OS (JP) 22 April 1975

NN 850 115 Following a resistivity survey, the site was re-excavated to clarify the results of excavations in 1972 by J K St Joseph (NMRS NN81SW 9), both here and on the neighbouring towers of Blackhill Wood and Shielhill North, to allow all three sites to be more fully published. As expected, the work revealed a double-ditched Gask series tower with ditches of the normal Roman military 'V' profile (albeit unusually small), with a single entrance break facing the Roman road to the E. The site is 24.3m in diameter, and sub-rectangular rather than circular in plan. Its internal area is 13.3m in diameter and contained a non-symmetrical timber tower with sides of 3.1m, 3.45m, 3.6m and 3.7m. As at Greenloaning (Woolliscroft 1995), the tower had two structural periods, the second of which had been burned. No signs of palisading or an internal rampart were detected, but there were badly plough-damaged traces of an internal clay and gravel surface. A single shard of late 1st to early 2nd-century Roman bottle glass was found in the ploughsoil, just above the inner ditch's S entrance butt end, but no stratified finds were recovered.

Sponsors: Manchester University Art History & Archaeology Department, Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.

D J Wooliscroft and B Hoffman 1996