Archaeologists discover signs of Roman industrial hub at site in Sunderland

Whetstones are stone bars which were used to sharpen bladed tools and weapons and were ubiquitous in the Roman empire. Photograph: Gary Bankhead/Durham University

Archaeologists have found evidence of a huge and previously unknown industrial hub of Roman manufacturing in a discovery seen as one of the most significant finds in northern England for a century.

Researchers were astonished to discover more than 800 whetstones at a site on the banks of the River Wear, and evidence of there being hundreds, if not thousands, more buried in the riverbank.