Time Team Excavation Site Castleford (Castleford)

 archeological site, interesting place

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In the thirty years following the Roman invasion, it seems that this place could have been one of the most important and thriving towns on the northern fringes of the empire. Important, because the Roman road of Dere Street, their equivalent of the M1, ran down there and crossed the river over there.

But with the building of Hadrian’s wall, a hundred miles to the north and the establishment of York twenty miles in that direction, the Roman empire expanded and Laegentium, the town of the swords as it was known, seems to have been largely forgotten, except for the people of Castleford, the town that now occupies this site.

We’ve been invited to West Yorkshire to try and find out whether Castleford deserves to be remembered as a major Roman site, rather than as a mining town that’s fallen on hard times. And as usual, we’ve got just three days to do it.