Early Discoveries:

c.1750

Mosaic pavement found
In about 1750 a visiting antiquarian T Wilson recorded in a letter that he had seen ‘ … several fragments of a fine tessellated pavement (mosaic) at Castleford, which had been dug up in a garden adjoining to the Bean-field …‘ This was the field called Bean Croft Field, where many other buildings and finds had been recorded. Unfortunately the mosaic was not drawn or kept.

Why have no mosaics been found since?
This is the only record of a mosaic being found in the centre of Castleford. Why? The large scale excavations carried out on from 1974-1985 were concentrated in the fort and the trading settlement next to it. Neither of these would have been likely to have mosaic floors.

Mosaics were usually laid at a later date in the homes of wealthy Romanised people. Individual finds from Castleford show that there was a later Romano-British settlement at Castleford but no buildings have yet been found by archaeologists.

So there may be other mosaics waiting to be discovered in Castleford!