Late in 2022, whilst using new aerial photographs to search for evidence of a ‘grange farm’ known to have been established by the Cistercian monastery of Holme Cultram in west Cumbria by 1200 AD, Grampus Heritage and Training Limited identified an archaeological cropmark, and a geophysical survey the following year hinted at a site of archaeological interest beneath the surface. A subsequent magnetometry and resistance survey over an area of 11 hectares around the cropmark produced extremely interesting evidence of a previously unrecorded rich historic landscape. However, whilst the team thought they had found the Holme Cultram site, the subsequent excavation uncovered a different side of Cumbria’s past…
This is the story of unearthing the largest Viking Age building to be discovered and excavated in Britain.
