Nigel's Photo Blog

This afternoon I am re-visiting the recently discovered high status Roman Bathhouse at Carlisle in N.W. England.This follows the site featuring on yesterday's Digging for Britain history show on BBC2 from which much of the information herein was sourced. During 2023 I visited the site and associated museum displays on two occasions, viz: Feb 4th 2023 Nov 9th 2023 .   Background Carlisle is a city in N.W. England which sits at the western end of the 2nd century AD fortification known as Hadrian's Wall. Unfortunately, Carlisle is prone to flooding. In 2005 the River Eden burst its banks and flooded the local Cricket Club. Prior to instigating a major restitution programme the Cricket Club ordered an archaeological survey of the site completely oblivious to the scale of the finds that were to be revealed. River Eden  Carlisle Cricket Club   Finds The archaeological programme revealed an extensive, very high status Roman Bath complex measuring about 50m (165 ft) by 50m (16...

  Carved Head: Male. Measures 56X31X30cm. The apparent thick upper lip may represent a moustache.Made from red sandstone. In February of this year I visited Carlisle in N.W. England to inspect the finds from a recently discovered Roman Bathhouse on the outskirts of the city. The report on this visit can be found here . Yesterday, inspired by media reports of further important finds, I paid a repeat visit which proved very rewarding.. By way of background, Carlisle has evolved from the Roman fort of Luguvalium which was established in AD72. Later, in the 2nd century, Hadrian's Wall was constructed east to west across what is now northern England. Luguvalium benefited from this in that it fell within the Romanised territory to the south of the Wall. Furthermore, the Wall incorporated 17 major forts of which one, Uxelodunum was situated a short distance to the N.E. Consistent with Roman military practice, a bathhouse was constructed to serve the 1000 strong garrison at Uxelodunum. ...