A1-The Great North Road
Brough-on-Humber is on the north bank, Winteringham on the south. There is evidence of some pre-Roman settlement at Brough so perhaps there was an early ferry crossing based here. A little to the east, is the important late pre-Roman Iron Age site at Redcliff. The chariot burials around Wetwang suggest that mobility was in vogue 400 years before the Romans arrived and the ancient trackways along the Lincolnshire ridges, the Jurassic Way, High Street and Barton Street, converge on the south bank so maybe the Iron-Age Great North Road had a chariot ferry hereabouts. And Bronze-Age? Three Bronze Age sewn-plank boats have been found in the mud near North Ferriby. Radiocarbon dates of about 2030-1680 BC make them the oldest known plank boat in western Europe. They were about 50 feet long and well able to cross the Humber. A very similar Bronze-Age boat was found at Dover. It had scratches on its bottom suggesting it was used on a pebbly beach and contained bits of stone from Dorset suggesting it plied the South coast. Channel crossings on a calm day were feasible but it would have been easily swamped by moderate waves so those who have compared the Ferriby boats’ similarity with Egyptian craft and suggested a more exotic origin are claiming a lot. Certainly the folk here were not all stick-in-the-muds and an occasional voyage across the North Sea may have been attempted but these boats would have been admirably suited to a regular ferry service across the Humber, filling an awkward gap in the Bronze-Age Great North Road.
Reconstruction drawing of a Ferriby boat.
Amongst the archaeological finds from the Humber foreshore between Brough and Ferriby has been a hurdle made of woven hazel, thought to have been laid flat to make a trackway across the marsh. The wood has been dated to around 1400BC, within the Middle Bronze Age. More at the Wetland Archaeology & Environments Research Centre, University of Hull. English Heritage describe two sites which were partly excavated, both on the foreshore at Melton, where recent and rapid erosion has contributed to the wholesale destruction of several archaeological sites. Both sites were trackways, built of woven hurdles of hazel and alder, which were pegged in the ground by stakes. The contemporary environment of the hurdled trackways was saltmarsh, a valuable landscape for fishing, wildfowling, and as pasture for cattle. Sea-level rose steadily in the Humber area during the Bronze Age resulting in the landward extension of tidal creeks. It is likely that the trackways were built to provide access across such creeks. The excellent preservation of the timber stakes and hurdles is a reflection of the wet environment in which they were built.
The Roman settlement at Brough or Petuaria probably dates from about AD70. Its importance may have been as a ferry point on the north-south route from Lincoln to York, as well as commanding the communication routes along the Humber and its tributaries, the Ouse and the Trent, providing access to the east midlands. A 1st century Roman fort was replaced by a walled settlement surrounded by a turf and timber rampart, itself replaced by a stone wall with external bastions during the later 3rd and early 4th century. Because of its low-lying position it was vulnerable to flooding, and it is probable that flooding brought about a terminal decline in the settlement during the later 4th century. However, it looks as though the Lincoln to York route via Ermine Street and a Humber crossing continued to be used despite the alternative routes across the Trent at Littleborough and Newark.
Weighty evidence of Roman trade passing this way was strengthened in 1890 when a 60kg block of lead was found near South Cave, four miles up the road towards York. Measuring about 56 x 14 x 11.5cms. it carried the inscription:
C·IVL·PROTI·BRIT·LVT·EX·ARG
In full, this would have read “Caii Iulii Proti Britanicum Lutudense ex Argento” which translates as “Caius Julius Protus British Lutudae without silver”. See the block of lead at Hull City Museum. Part of a similar block, bearing the partial inscription “BR·EX·ARG” had been found some two hundred years previously at Brough. Julius Protus was probably the operator of the mine at Lutudae, possibly in Derbyshire. “Ex Argento” means that any silver present in the ore had been removed from the lead.
The Romans may have built several crossing points with landing stages at intervals along both banks of the river. The river, being tidal, is hard to cross in a straight line, boats drifting with the tide.
There have been suggestions that a ford was built across the Humber but there is no solid evidence like the oak piles and stone paving in the Trent at Littleborough and the Humber estuary is a much more challenging environment than the river Trent. The notion seems particularly far-fetched when one considers that local sea level may have been a little higher than now, post-glacial sea-level rise having been faster than isostatic recovery.
The Humber has continued to be an obstacle to North-South travel through the centuries, confirming the Great North Road’s inland route, west of the Trent. Here Daniel Defoe relates his experience in about 1700. “Barton is a town noted for nothing that I know of, but an ill-favoured dangerous passage, or ferry, over the Humber to Hull; where in an open boat, in which we had about fifteen horses and ten or twelve cows, mingled with about seventeen or eighteen passengers, called Christians; we were about four hours tossed about on the Humber, before we could get into the harbour at Hull; whether I was seasick or not, is not worth notice, but we were all sick of the passage, any one may suppose, and particularly I was so uneasy at it, that I chose to go round by York, rather than return to Barton, at least for that time.”
Trollope, in his 1868 paper on the Ermine Street, described the road's Humber end thus:
"The Ermine Street can no longer be traced in Winteringham, its bank having been destroyed through the enclosure of that parish and subsequent cultivation; but there is no doubt as to its line, and the spot where it reached the Humber; for, continuing its former straight course northwards, it would at length reach the summit of a small promontory on that great river, half a mile northeast of the village of Winteringham, which formerly protected a little haven called Flashmire, now silted up. This terminal was marked by a Station, probably that of Ad Album, which Stukeley states was ploughed up a few years before he wrote his Itinerarium Curiosum. In his account of this spot, he speaks of the existence of a fine spring here - always a desirable adjunct to a Station - of vast stones, pavements, and foundations, which often broke ploughers' shares, and of remains of streets or roads made of gravel or sea sand. He also gives an engraving of the appearance of this spot, dated 1776, and states that several intakes had been made here in the memory of man.
"Stukeley, speaking of Winteringham, says, 'This place is over against Brough, The Roman town on the Yorkshire shore, but it is rather more eastward, so that, with the tide coming in, they ferried over very commodiously thither;' and, in confirmation of this opinion, a discovery was made here, and at Brough, during the remarkably dry summer of 1826, when the Humber was very low, viz., the remains of a raised causeway, or jetty, stretching out from both places, similar to the vadum descent in the Trent at Littleborough, and apparently of Roman construction."
There is little sign today that the drain opening into a muddy creek was once on a significant route-way. St. Ethelreda probably landed here on her pilgrimage south to Ely and in 1143 William de St. Barbara, returning from London was met by his monks with the news that he had been elected Bishop of Durham.
There is some further information on this page of Adrian Worsfold's website
Lincolnshire
©Biff Vernon 2001