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

Our 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

Crowds flock around the Skylon and Dome of Discovery at the Festival of Britain South Bank Site on 12 May 1951. Both structures were dismantled at the end of the Festival in 1952. Photographer: Aerofilms Ltd, Image reference: Source: Historic England Archive EAW035702
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 quarry inscription on Queen's Crags, 680m south east of East Hotbank

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

Overview

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1017958
Date first listed:: 01-May-1972

User submitted image — Uploaded by Andrew Curtis This photo may not represent the current condition of the site
View all

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:: 1017958
Date first listed:: 01-May-1972
Date of most recent amendment:: 26-Apr-1998

Location

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

District:: Northumberland (Unitary Authority)
Parish:: Bardon Mill
National Park:: NORTHUMBERLAND
National Grid Reference:: NY 79455 70572

Reasons for Designation

The Roman conquest of Britain brought a signficant increase in the requirement for building stone and generated the first major quarrying industry to be developed in England. Quarries were opened and exploited from soon after the conquest to the end of the Roman period in the fifth century. The majority were used for a very limited period of time and met the requirements for building stone within their immediate areas. A few, including the Purbeck marble quarries, produced very high quality building stone which was transported for use over a wide area. Many were under military control to produce stone for forts or defence works such as Hadrian's Wall. Others were under the control of town authorities. In some instances they may also have been privately owned. Most provided building stone, but a few were used for more specific purposes to produce quern or mill stones. Quarrying techniques were relatively simple and involved the use of wedges, separation trenches and percussion to split lumps of rock from the parent material. Irregular blocks of stone were usually dressed to shape before being transported from the quarries. Tracks and pathways enabling the removal of stone from the quarry would also have existed. Visible remains include working faces, waste heaps and dressing floors. Today, however, very few Roman quarries can be positively identified because reuse in later times has removed much evidence for Roman activity, whilst the continued use of similar quarrying techniques over long periods often makes it impossible to determine the exact date of surviving remains. Most of the quarries which are considered to be Roman are dated on the basis of surviving inscriptions or carvings, usually on the worked face. Fewer than 50 quarries have been confirmed to retain evidence for Roman activity. In view of their rarity and the insights they provide into Roman technology and building works, all surviving examples will be identified to be nationally important.

The Roman quarry inscription on Queen's Crag survives well and is a good example of its type. Its association with Hadrian's Wall, for which the stone is thought to have been quarried, enhances the importance of the monument.

Details

The monument includes a Roman quarry inscription, protected by an overhang, on the north face of a sandstone ridge known as Queen's Crags. The Roman fort at Housesteads lies some 1600m to the south east. The inscription, which has been carved into a smooth rock face 1.4m above the ground, marks the site of a Roman quarry. The inscription consists of four lines containing the names of three leaders of a quarrying party, two Centurians (Saturninus and Rufinus) and an Optio (Henoenus). It reads as follows:

>SATVRNINVS >RUFI[NVS HIINOIINVS OPTIO The carving of the first line has been carefully executed and on average the letters are 5cm high. The following three lines are more crudely carved and are thought to be the work of a second person.

MAP EXTRACT The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:: 28575
Legacy System:: RSM

Sources

Books and journals
'Journal of Roman Studies' in Roman Britain in 1960, , Vol. 51, (1961), 194
Other
NY77SE 06,

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.