BOONIES (NY304 900)

This Romano-British “defended farmstead” is on the west bank of the Esk.

It is included in the Prehistoric Trail largely because Professor George Jobey of Newcastle University excavated it in 1973-4 so we know more about it than about similar sites  up and down the valley. Boonies gives clues to the everyday life of the people of Eskdale before during and after the Roman invasion.

Walk round the protective rampart. See how, as in many similar enclosures, this one is in the V-angle between the Esk on the far side of the site and the small burn running down to join the river. So if the enclosure was attacked, although it was vulnerable from the NW, it would benefit on two sides from the natural defences of a steep drop down towards the Esk and a lesser slope towards the burn. Such natural defences have clearly been used in other sites in Eskdale, including The Knowe and Bessie’s Hill Fort.

Most obvious from the site plan of Jobey’s excavations are the confusing patterns of the wall-trenches of up to 13 timber round-houses varying from 5.5 to 8m in diameter, representing about seven separate periods of construction. As the original family extended, building next door, and so on, filled the need for more accommodation. The five round-houses of the final phase are shown in colour on the plan. In a late period the yard had been paved with river-worn flat stones under which a drain was found near the entrance.

The enclosing earthwork was probably from one of the later periods of habitation, perhaps around the first century AD. Was this<