Listing
Search the List

What is Listing?

Listing Guidance

Apply for Listing

Missing Pieces Project

Blue Plaque Scheme
Listing

Find out about listed buildings and other protected sites, and search the National Heritage List for England (NHLE).

Find out about listing

Terracotta tiles on the roof of Saintoft Lodge, Newton-on-Rawcliffe, Ryedale, North Yorkshire. Grade II listed © Historic England Archive DP371715
Advice
Climate Change

Heritage at Risk

Your Home

Technical Guidance

Planning

Caring for Heritage

Constructive Conservation
Advice

See our extensive range of expert advice to help you care for and protect historic places.

Get our advice

A contractor cutting bricks for the wall of the partially-restored wild and natural walled garden at Warley Place, Brentwood. Explore our technical advice section © Historic England Archive DP313199
Research
Our Research Strategy and Agenda

Research Governance

Latest Research

Research Methods

Current Research

Research Results

Support & Collaboration

Inclusive Heritage

Heritage Counts
Research

Discover and use our high-quality applied research to support the protection and management of the historic environment.

Discover our research

Archaeologist Dr David Neal discussing his illustration of the mosaic being excavated at Rutland Roman Villa with members of the University of Leicester Archaeological Services team View image DP264265 © Historic England
Images & Books
Find Photos

Search All Publications

Buy Books

The Historic England Archive
Images & Books

Historic England holds an extensive range of publications and historic collections in its public archive covering the historic environment.

Browse our collections

Children play with a doll and a pram on the cobbled Church Path in Queen Camel, Somerset, in April 1953. At the far end of the path is the tower of the Church of St Barnabas, which dates to the 14th century. Photographer: John Gay Image reference: AA091596 © Historic England Archive
Services & Skills
Education

Grants

Our Planning Services

Training & Skills

Archive Services

Heritage Action Zones

Levelling Up Places Service
Services & Skills

Find out about services offered by Historic England for funding, planning, education and research, as well as training and skill development.

Learn about our services

Heritage Apprentices in a training session on the Researching The Historic Environment module and training in Architectural Photography. Find out more about Heritage Apprenticeships © Historic England Archive DP347660
What's New
News

In Your Area

Historic England Blog

Latest Research

Heritage Online Debate

Statements

Stay up to Date
What's New

Read about our current news, projects and campaigns nationally and in your area.

Catch up with what's new

Two horsemen reading The Sportsman, 30 Oct 1902, Farnborough, Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire. Part of the Alfred Newton and Sons collection. Source Historic England Archive. BB98/02592
About Us
What We Do

Who We Are

How We Are Funded

Contact Us

Careers

Volunteer with Historic England
About Us

Historic England is the public body that helps people care for, enjoy and celebrate England's spectacular historic environment.

Find out more

Mountbatten House (formerly Gateway House), Basing View, Basingstoke, the former headquarters for the paper merchants Wiggins Teape by Arup Associates. Listed at Grade II. © Historic England
Sign in
Manage my account

Sign out

Roman signal station 190m north west of Vale House Farm

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1016464
Date first listed:: 11-Feb-1977

The Missing Pieces Project

Share your view of unique places.

Add your contribution

Location

Location of this list entry and nearby places that are also listed. Use our map search to find more listed places.

This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale.

What is the National Heritage List for England?

The National Heritage List for England is a unique register of our country's most significant historic buildings and sites. The places on the list are protected by law and most are not open to the public.

The list includes:

🏠 Buildings
🏰 Scheduled monuments
🌳 Parks and gardens
⚔️ Battlefields
⚓ Shipwrecks

Find out more about listing

Historic England Archive

Search over 1 million photographs and drawings from the 1850s to the present day using our images archive.

Find Photos

Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1016464
Date first listed:: 11-Feb-1977
Date of most recent amendment:: 19-Mar-1999

Location

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

District:: County Durham (Unitary Authority)
Parish:: Bowes
National Grid Reference:: NY 94710 12786

Reasons for Designation

Roman signal stations were rectangular towers of stone or wood situated within ditched, embanked, palisaded or walled enclosures. They were built by the Roman army for military observation and signalling by means of fire or smoke. They normally formed an element of a wider system of defence and signalling between military sites such as forts and camps and towns, generally as part of a chain of stations to cover long distances. In northern England stations were used in particular to augment the main frontier formed by Hadrian's Wall, but elsewhere stations were constructed along the coast to keep lookout over the sea and to signal information both along the coast and to inland sites. Signal stations were constructed and used in Britain mainly during three distinct periods. The earliest examples were built between AD 50 and AD 117 for use during the earliest military campaigns during the conquest period. Signal stations at this period took the form of a wooden tower surrounded by a ditch and bank and possibly a slight timber palisade. After AD 117 towers were more usually built in stone, some on the same site as earlier timber towers. The latest series, in the mid-4th century AD, were more substantial stone signal stations built mainly along the Yorkshire coast. These had a tower up to 30m high which was surrounded by a curtain wall and external ditch. Signal stations survive as low earthworks, or their below ground remains may be identified on aerial photographs. Fewer than 50 examples have been identified in England. As one of a small group of Roman military monuments, which are important in representing army strategy, government policy and the pattern of military control, signal stations are of importance to our understanding of the period. All Roman signal stations with surviving archaeological remains are considered to be nationally important.

The signal station near Vale House Farm is reasonably well preserved and retains significant archaeological deposits. It is one of a group of towers thought to have been used for signalling purposes across Stainmore. Taken as a group, they will add to our knowledge and understanding of the Roman occupation of the area.

Details

The monument includes the remains of a tower of Roman date, situated on the top of a small spur above the Stainmore Pass adjacent and parallel to the Roman road. The tower commands extensive views in all directions except to the north where the ground rises. The tower is one of a chain of similar monuments which cross Stainmoor between the Roman forts of Bowes and Brough thought to have functioned as signal stations. It is visible as a roughly round mound of earth which measures 10m across. It is bounded by a slight bank which, where it is best defined on the western side, is 4m wide and stands to a maximum of 0.4m. There are gaps through the centre of the north and the south banks, and the latter, which is 1.5m wide, is thought to have been the site of an original entrance.

MAP EXTRACT The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract. It includes a 2 metre boundary around the archaeological features, considered to be essential for the monument's support and preservation.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:: 28597
Legacy System:: RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Vyner, et al, The Archaeology of the Stainmore Pass, (1998)
Other
NY91SW06,

Legal

This monument is scheduled under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979 as amended as it appears to the Secretary of State to be of national importance. This entry is a copy, the original is held by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.