What a fascinating evening that was.  I’m sure we all remember the floods of 2015 when Summerseat was cut in half by a collapsed bridge but the problems in Carlisle were even worse as it included loss of life.  However, there was an unexpected positive when the cricket ground (including the pavilion), was flooded under several feet of water.

It was clearly necessary to build the new pavilion on higher ground but underneath the old one were what were obvious Roman remains.  Post-covid, a community dig was organised which has to date revealed two bath houses with high status jewellery in the drains and incredibly, bricks imprinted ‘IMP’ – Imperial!

It is now apparent that this was not only an important staging post for the Roman elite but a huge complex with many more surprises waiting to be found.  New finds are appearing all the time and include two extremely rare, large carved heads and a number of ceramic vaulted nozzle tubes used in roof construction.

This dig will change our view of the Romans in the North West by adding this extremely important settlement to the existing list of Roman sites.

Hopefully we’ll be able to organise a chara trip to see the site for ourselves in 2025.

Thanks again Maggy.