Uncovering Roman Carlisle: Cricket Club BIG Dig 2023

A community excavation has been taking place on the site of Carlisle Cricket Club since 2017!

The presence of a large Roman bathhouse on the site had been identified by archaeologists from Wardell Armstrong in May 2017, when an evaluation had taken place ahead of redevelopment work. The initial discovery was quickly followed by additional investigatory excavation, directed by Frank Giecco (Wardell Armstrong LLP) during the autumn of that same year and paid for by Carlisle City Council and local businesses. These early phases of work successfully engaged volunteer diggers from the community. Indeed, the surprise discoveries caught the public imagination with such force that the idea to fund a community project on a larger scale quickly followed.

The site of the Carlisle Cricket Club occupies what was once an extremely important and well-defended location within the frontier system of Roman Britain and most northern city in the whole Roman empire. It lies on the north bank of the river Eden close to a bridge that connected two Roman forts.

The fort on the south side of the river, Luguvalium, was excavated between 1997 and 2001 and found to have been established under the Flavians. Roman control of this strategic river crossing was consolidated with the establishment of Uxelodunum, known today as Stanwix fort, on the high ground north of the river when the turf stretch of Hadrian’s Wall was built in the early 2nd century AD. The fort at Stanwix was eventually expanded to become the largest of all the forts on Hadrian’s Wall, eventually housing a cavalry regiment called the Ala Petriana.

This small piece of land, measuring just a few hectares, was protected on its northern side by Hadrian’s Wall and on all other sides by a sharp meander in the river Eden. It is very likely that this area was occupied by an extra-mural settlement associated with Stanwix fort, the community which lived in the settlement being closely associated with the Roman military and close to where Hadrian’s Wall crossed the river Eden at its confluence with the river Caldew.

The Severan bathhouse was truly colossal in scale. Its northern, eastern and western limits were not reached within the excavation trenches. Only on its south side was the external wall found and a contemporary east-west aligned street uncovered. The building had walls 1.05m thick!

The stone used in the bathhouse buildings is similar in character to sandstone outcropping locally along the banks of the River Eden and the River Gelt, where known Roman quarries have been located. Huge pieces of opus signinum and mortared superstructure were found to have fallen through the floors and between the hypocaust pilae stacks. Large quantities of hollow box flue tile, combed on the exterior, were recovered. Their internal surfaces were often blackened with soot. Several T-shaped iron clamps, used to affix the box tiles to the walls, were also recovered.

No roof tiles were found and the evidence of ceramic, nozzled tubes and ‘armchair voussoirs’ suggest the presence of a vaulted roof. A key difference between the stacks of square hypocaust tiles recovered from the Hadrianic and Severan bathhouses is that the Severan hypocaust tiles frequently bore stamps. Twenty-nine tiles with an identical ligatured ‘IMP’ stamp, standing for imperator (emperor) have been recovered.

The Gems are coming from the drain of the high status Severan bathhouse with a possible Imperial connection. We now have 35 intaglio, 55 glass beads and over 100 hair pins from our site that were lost in the third century.

We believe they are lost as a result of the hot, steamy and wet environment of a Roman bathhouse, gems might easily become detached from signet rings, or the entire ring become detached from the finger and washed down the drain. We don’t believe that there is any ritual significance to the deposition as was once suggested for the intaglio discovered at the roman baths at Bath.

The intaglio can be seen on many levels form pieces of art to connections to the individuals who owned them. It is noteworthy that very few have a obvious military connection as you might expect from a garrison town such as Carlisle but include deities such as fortuna, Bonus Eventus, Appolo and Ceres. They are found with beautiful hairpins which again suggests may of these jewels belonged to female rather than male owners.

There is a distinct style to a number of the red jasper intaglio may point to a jewellery workshop supplying the Hadrians wall zone based in Carlisle.

There is no tangible Roman heritage visible in the city, despite the significance of Carlisle as a one-time centre of the Roman world and its proximity to the Hadrian’s Wall world heritage site.

During this upcoming phase we hope to locate the south east corner of the Severan Bathhouse and investigate the apsidal room we discovered in December 2022. We also hope to trace the southern wall and find evidence for the 4th century rebuilding. We also hope to find more evidence of pre Severan occupation to the south of the bathhouse and trace more of the route of the main bathhouse drain and confirm its relationship with the apsidal wall. If we are extremely lucky we may find more evidence of late 4th/5th occupation on the site.

Professionally, the excavation has added further evidence to the importance of Carlisle and its place at one time as the centre of the Roman Empire. More broadly, there has been international interest in the site and finds, making more people aware of the Museum, Carlisle as a Roman centre, and the Hadrian’s Wall world heritage site. We hope to add to this during our 5 weeks on site and follow up post-excavation study of the results.

This year there will be slots for digging, finds washing and wet sieving, but we will also be offering opportunities for people to train as volunteer supervisors.

Excavation of features on site. Includes use of digging equipment (spade, mattock, trowel, bucket, wheelbarrow) and some limited access will be unavoidable. Be prepared to get muddy!

To support our visitors getting around the site, providing information on what we have found before and on what’s just been uncovered.

Supervisors will assist the professional trench supervisors to photograph, draw and record the trenches as well as supervise some aspects of the digging. There will also opportunities to volunteer to be a Finds washing supervisor. Training will be compulsory for all volunteer supervisors and will be provided with a series of evening sessions in April/May 2023. These sessions will be provided by Frank Giecco and Justine Biddle at our Wardell Armstrong premises on Marconi Road, Carlisle and be organised separately.

Cleaning, cataloguing and recording our finds as they come out of the ground, in our facility on site.

There will also be opportunities to volunteer as part of our onsite wet sieving team. This will be part of our soil sample processing and will be used to sieve the drain fill looking for small objects in amongst the drain fill.

The UK Shared Prosperity Fund is a central pillar of the UK government’s Levelling Up agenda and provides £2.6 billion of funding for local investment by March 2025.

The Fund aims to improve pride in place and increase life chances across the UK investing in communities and place, supporting local business, and people and skills. For more information, visit https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-shared-prosperity-fund-prospectus

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