UCLan Archeology students to take part in groundbreaking investigation this Summer

The project, funded by the Castle Studies Trust, aims to reveal how the Normans conquered and colonised the region, what this process was like for inhabitants, and to chart the origins of the Lowther estate.

Preliminary work suggests the remains of Lowther’s medieval castle and its adjoining village may date to the late 11th Century. If so, the site would provide rare evidence of the conquest of Cumbria by King William Rufus and his brother King Henry I, a generation after the Normans seized control of the rest of England.

The project is led by Dr Sophie Thérèse Ambler from Lancaster University, while the archaeological investigation will be run by Allen Archaeology, together with UCLan undergraduate and postgraduate students.

Dr Jim Morris, a Senior Lecturer in archaeology and Course Leader in archaeology & anthropology at UCLan who will lead the students, said: “It’s an exciting opportunity for our second-year, third-year and masters’ students to work on a site that may rewrite our understanding of the Norman conquest of Cumbria. There has never been an archaeological dig on this site before, and there is very little archaeological knowledge of the early Norman period, so we’re excited about what we might discover.

“It continues our proud tradition of working with commercial organisation, such as Allen Archaeology, on ground-breaking archaeological research in the North West. Our students will be alongside professional archaeologists gaining important skills for their degrees and further archaeological employment.”

The team will conduct a geophysical survey and open trenches across the earthworks of the castle and village to uncover evidence of when the castle was built, its relationship to the adjoining village, and how the site changed over the centuries.

Dr Ambler, a Reader in Medieval History and Deputy Director of the Centre for War and Diplomacy at Lancaster University, added: “We have little written evidence for Cumbria in the early and central Middle Ages: since this region wasn’t part of William the Conqueror’s kingdom it isn’t included in Domesday Book, and few records have otherwise survived. The archaeology at Lowther offers a fantastic opportunity to understand how the estate was established – and this will hopefully provide important new evidence for a critical period in Britain’s past, when Cumbria was annexed to the English realm.”

Visitors to Lowther Castle and Gardens will be able to view the excavations, and the findings will be used to share the story of the estate’s medieval past.

The investigation will help scholars understand an important, but little documented, phase in Britain’s history.