Ferrybridge Chariot Burial and the Great North Road
A rare chariot burial was discovered in 2003 during the construction of the upgraded motorway intersection between the A1(M) Great North Road and the M62. The burial site is just south of the latest crossing point of the River Aire.
A rare chariot burial was discovered in 2003 during the construction of the upgraded motorway intersection between the A1(M) Great North Road and the M62. The site is just south of the latest crossing point of the River Aire.

So did this chariot once race along the Iron Age Great North Road, 2,300 years ago?
Perhaps not, but it underlines that wheeled transport was developing amongst the people who lived nearby.
The Ferry Fryston Chariot Burial
The Ferry Fryston burial, as it is officially named, was discovered when bulldozers stripped away topsoil over a limestone chamber where the chariot and human burial had been concealed. Archaeologists also discovered the remains of over 180 cattle.

The partially excavated skeleton and chariot. Image Credit – Oxford Archaeology
The skeleton is that of a man aged 30-40, about 1.7m (5ft 9in) in height, in apparently good health and with an excellent set of teeth. Strontium isotope analysis of his tooth enamel indicates that he probably grew up further north, possibly Scotland or even Scandinavia. The remains of a brooch for fastening a cloak were found close to the man’s left shoulder. Radiocarbon dating is somewhat ambiguous but indicates a burial date in the 4th century BC.
The chariot was found complete with its 900mm diameter iron clad wheels upright in the ground – only the second such burial found in Britain. This has given archaeologists a rare insight into Iron Age chariot construction. Even though the wooden and leather parts of the chariot had rotted way, archaeologists were able to identify the position, size and location of missing elements by filling the voids left behind with plaster or by recording the darker stains left in the soil from wood tannins. It was intended to be pulled by two draught animals, probably horses.
To what degree the chariot was typical of those used in the period is uncertain but the archaeological assessment is complimentary:
The evidence preserved suggests a sophisticated understanding of the art of spoked wheel manufacture and a knowledge of the structural capabilities of timber in vehicle construction, but the precise purpose is more conjectural. In general, it seems to conform to the type being produced in Britain in the second half of the first millennium BC

Section through one of the wheels. Image Credit – Oxford Archaeology
The 12,000 animal bone fragments in burial pits around the chariot were at first thought to be the remains of a large sacrificial burial feast. Subsequent tests showed that the bones dated from the time of the initial Iron Age burial through to the 2nd century AD indicating repeated visits to the site over a period of up to five hundred years.
The burial was part of a funerary landscape created over several thousand years, from the early Bronze Age to the Roman period, including cremations within ring ditches, a beaker burial, also containing a dagger, and an archer’s wrist guard in Langdale tuff, a possible timber structure and a pit alignment. It was found some 30m from a square timber enclosure, of a type often interpreted as a shrine.
The Parisii Tribe and Arras Culture
Iron Age chariot burials in Britain were typically reserved for high-ranking figures in the Parisii tribe from the Yorkshire Wolds.
The phenomenon first appears in the late 5th century BC and continues into the 1st century BC. Such burials are concentrated in eastern Yorkshire, but they closely resemble funerary rites practised in parts of northern France (near Arras), suggesting a connection of some kind between the two regions.
The Arras Culture is denoted by a variety of practices, including crouched burials placed within small grave cuts and particularly the use or association of square barrows or enclosures around many of the graves.
Most Iron Age cemeteries containing dismantled chariots or carts have been found in the low chalk hills forming the Yorkshire Wolds but the Ferrybridge burial (and another found in 2017 at Pocklington which included the remains of upright horses) suggest a wider spread of this culture.

Chariot burials in Yorkshire. Image Credit – Oxford Archaeology
More Information about the Ferrybridge Chariot Burial
Image at top of page : Half-scale chariot reconstruction at Castleford Museum