They came, they saw, they settled

A ROMAN soldier, sent from warm civilisation to a savage, bitterly cold northern shore to tame wild British tribes, shivers as he crouches in a tiny fort.

In the popular imagination that legionary was a conqueror sent to rule over our forebears in the North-Eastern part of what is now called England.

After all, that is what the available evidence seems to tell us. Just think of the forts of Lanchester, Binchester, Piercebridge and Ebchester that litter the militarised Dere Street road north of the seemingly tamed Yorkshire.

Then there's Hadrian's Wall and the recent archaeological find at Newton Bewley, near Hartlepool, of bodies slain in 400AD probably as they ran from Roman soldiers.

All that military might contrasts with the archaeology of other parts of England and Wales. Further south, lavish Roman villas and evidence of a serious cultural influence coming from Rome can be found.

We're left with the impression that the soft south had its immense Roman cities, luxurious villas, baths, and ampitheatres while the wild North-East had its military walls and forts. It's an impression historians have long questioned and new evidence appears to show they were right to do so.

For archaeologists from Durham University and Tees Archaeology have worked together to dig up a Romano-British villa at Ingleby Barwick, south of Stockton, the most northerly professionally excavated villa of the vast Roman Empire.

It's an important find and seems to indicate that someone, probably a Romanised Briton, not only lived in some luxury but also had a profitable agricultural business. For not only is there evidence of a heated room and villa but of a huge barn and two circular building with threshing floors. It seems as if someone who was probably a North-Easterner had a business supplying grain to the Roman army and could afford to live well on the proceeds.

It's a picture which indicates that there was a closer relationship between Britons and Roman soldiers - who themselves would have come from across the Empire, often far from Rome - than might be guessed from all those forts and military walls.

And it fits with evidence that there may have another villa at Old Durham, just outside Durham City. Unsubstantiated proof of that villa first came to light in the late 19th and early 20th century, when workers excavated a stone quarry. What evidence remains shows it may have been similar to what has been found at Ingleby Barwick, but most of that proof has been destroyed.

There's also some evidence of another Roman villa at Dalton, also in the Tees Valley, and yet another close to Piercebridge Roman Fort, near Darlington. Those villas have not been professionally examined and much of the evidence has been destroyed. However taken together a picture begins to emerge that there was more than one, wealthy ancient North-Easterner happy to work with the Roman overlords.

Other archaeology shows that the Tees Valley had been relatively heavily populated in the Iron Age and Roman period and the fact that some sort of Roman settlement existed at Ingleby Barwick has been known since aerial photographs were taken in the 1970s. However it is only since a geophysical survey was undertaken three years ago that historians and archaeologists realised that this site could be of international importance.

PETER Rowe, sites and monuments officer at Hartlepool-based Tees Archaeology, explains that at that point hasty negotiations began with Persimmon Homes, developers who had gained permission to build houses across the entire site 30 years previously. Eventually, an agreement to excavate part of the site was made but still the news of just how important the discovery was did not filter through to the people of the area until The Northern Echo published the finds late last year, as the hurried excavation began between August and January.

Excited local historians have even thrown up the idea that the villa could have been home to Cartimandua, Queen of the Brigantes.

That idea is scotched by Peter Rowe. But, talk to him, and you are left in no doubt that this is no ordinary find.

"Like always, there's many, many questions left unanswered," he says. "Heaven knows what the rest of the population, the normal people, thought of the big villa and it's just one site. However it gives us a better picture of what could be built up here. It's interesting as it was probably a British person who owned it and lived there and means we can look again at the Romano-British culture of Teesside. We think the main building may have had both residential and agricultural uses but there's so much still to find out."

Mr Rowe explains there was a small bath, or hot room and a circular horse mill for grinding corn. The area would have been important because of a ford in the Tees (a name the river would have had even then, nearly 2,000 years ago) which meant river traffic could have been controlled.

Daniel Still of Durham University's archaeology department directed the excavation and largely agrees with Mr Rowe's analysis that some local people at least did take on Roman culture.

He says: "It is still clear that this region was a militarised zone but you have to remember the Romans were here for a long time, hundreds of years. The relationship between various people must have developed and changed."

And, after all, the find of a small, relatively rudimentary Roman villa, doesn't mean all those forts, the monolithic Hadrian's wall, Dere Street and all the other evidence of serious Roman power should be discounted. Our region may never have been completely tamed, even by the might of the Roman Empire.