The Aldborough Roman Town Project was set up in 2009 by Dr Rose Ferraby and Prof. Martin Millett, Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge. The project was designed to carry out archaeological research on the town of Isurium Brigantum, now the village of Aldborough in North Yorkshire, with an aim to better understanding its origins, development and its role in the social, political and economic scene of Roman Britain.
The project has carried out nearly 120 hectares of magnetometry inside the town and beyond, in order to establish a landscape scale view of the sub-surface archaeological remains of the town, its defenses, road system and extra-mural areas. Ground Penetrating Radar has been used more selectively within the town, where we are able to make out the detailed layerings of the Roman buildings.
Since 2016 small excavations have been carried out to re-examine earlier trenches. This includes a trench on the English Heritage site in 2016 to look at part of a bath complex in a large town house; one on the verge opposite the pub to find the Forum in 2017; an excavation on a large warehouse near the North Gate in 2018; and in 2019-20 a site near the North Gate investigating buildings at the intersection of two main streets.
Alongside this new work, we have synthesised all past work on the site – going right back to 1660! We now know that Isurium Brigantum was a key town in the Roman expansion into the north of Britain. It has a rich and complex story to tell; one which we are very much looking forward to finding out.