A West Cumbria Archaeological Society Heritage Lottery Funded project, we will be concentrating on the fields to the south of the Abbey, focusing in the river edge area where we found the sandstone pier in the 2016 excavation.This page will include galleries on our progress during the project, whether it be excavations, surveying or workshops, as well as updates on the work we will be doing and what we have discovered.
We value any time volunteers can give us, so whether you would like to get involved in the excavations, or any of the post excavations workshops, or everything we will be offering through this project, then please contact us or look on the West Cumbria Archaeological Society’s facebook page for more information.
Between the 8th – 19th October 2018, we welcomed volunteers who could offer any of their spare time with us over the 2 week excavation. For this season, we worked on the higher ground in the field to the south, close to the red barn. We targeted geophysical survey anomalies around the tree area, opening up a large trench which kept the volunteers busty for the 2 weeks. Below is a small gallery to show what we found, but more photos can be found on the WCAS facebook page.
A big thank you to the volunteers who came and helped us, whatever the weather chose to throw at us!
Next seasons excavation will take place in Spring 2019, where we will go to the area next to the pier site, looking at geophysical anomalies that appear to sit on what was the river’s edge. This will be a 3 week excavation, and again volunteers will be welcome.
On both excavations we will be offering training in excavation techniques, recording (context sheets, drawing plans and sections, photographing features, recording “small” finds (finds of significance) and trench planning), environmental sampling and, if we can get set up, finds washing and the start of the post excavation process. Site visitors are also welcome to come and talk to us about the site and the work we have done over the years.
During the year long project, we will also be offering post excavation workshops and day trips out to visit other monastery sites. We will fill this page with galleries as and when work is done, so you can see our activities.
