Work in 1934 suggested that there might be a Roman Stanegate fort located at High Crosby, but the evidence was very slim and has always been regarded with a healthy degree of scepticism; repeated aerial reconnaissance has revealed no crop or parch marks apart from the well-known site at White Moss. The first indications that significant archaeological features might survive in an otherwise unprepossessing landscape were recorded in 1991 by the Carlisle Archaeological Unit during the evaluation of the route of the proposed Crosby Bypass. The initial 1991 evaluation and the subsequent excavation in 1993, funded by Cumbria County Council with assistance from English Heritage, revealed evidence for prehistoric settlement adjacent to an ancient stream bed. The significance and potential of these features were enhanced both by waterlogging and by the important programme of palynological work undertaken in recent years on the nearby Walton and Bolton Fell Mosses by Birmingham and Southampton universities. English Heritage funded a further evaluation in both ploughed and undisturbed fields a short distance to the north of the site in March-April 1995. The objective of this latest phase of work was to determine whether the earlier results represented an isolated settlement or were a component of a more extensive use of the landscape.
The sites investigated in 1991 and 1993 lie on a low hilltop covered with sandy soils, in which many of the archaeological features were only very subtly different to the surrounding natural subsoil. Indeed they could be observed only after repeated trowellings and with the benefit of an intimate knowledge of local soil conditions. None of the features would have yielded parch marks and very few were sufficiently large to generate any form of crop mark; it is most unlikely that geophysical techniques would have produced useful results.
A first assessment of the combined evidence recovered during the course of this work provides a model for landscape development in northern Cumbria, perhaps extending from the early Holocene into more recent times. The sequence commenced with the deposition of an alluvial fan and the development of a Carr-type peat, perhaps containing alder, followed by a period of environmental change in which the peats were eroded and alluvium was redeposited. Whether or not this represents a phase of climatic change is not clear. Some disturbance of the local landscape then took place, leading to the movement of soil downslope. It is possible that this is contemporary with the earliest deposits recognised during evaluation work (Period 1). A number of shallow pits, some of which could be post-settings, were discovered, containing several large sherds of undecorated Neolithic pottery, tentatively ascribed to the Lyles Hill or Grimston traditions. Several fragments of polished stone axes were also found, although not associated with the pottery.
It is thought that a more radical disturbance of the landscape then took place in Period 2. The main excavation, located next to and within a former stream bed, revealed a series of five lines of palisades, some of which contained timbers in situ. The bases of at least 12 posts survived in one of the palisade slots. The posts were closely spaced and appear to be whole trunks, up to 0.3m in diameter, with trimmed ends. Where best preserved, the slots, which had been dug to a width just large enough to receive the posts, were up to 0.5m deep. A single radiocarbon determination from one of the timbers suggests a middle or late Bronze Age date (cal BC 1030-800; GU 5352; 2740±60BP). No relationships were established between the various lines of palisade, but their layout on the eastern side suggests contemporaneity and they may define an enclosure at least 70m by 70m. There was some evidence for collapse and repair work on the eroded northern circuit of one palisade, suggesting perhaps a gradual movement away from the eroding edge of the stream bed.
High Crosby, Carlisle, Cumbria:
Bronze Age palisade slot,
showing butt-end with
surviving posts
During the increasingly wet late Bronze Age and Iron Age there was a gradual accumulation of humose soils, but whether or not this is contemporary with Period 3, represented archaeologically by a concentration of posts and pits, one of which yielded carbonised grains of hulled barley, is not yet clear. Very limited evidence for land use in the Roman period was discovered, but renewed colluviation in the twelfth - thirteenth centuries AD, almost certainly a consequence of ploughing, led to the development of the modern ground surface.
In 1994-95, further evaluations took place on an east-west ridge and a small isolated knoll a short distance to the north of the original excavation. These areas were all bounded by low-lying areas of former wetlands thought to contain deposits of peat and their selection was determined by topographic considerations. At the western end of the ridge, a broad, flat-bottomed ditch of probable prehistoric date, aligned north-west/south-east, had completely silted up before being cut by a shallower ditch on a slightly different alignment which contained Roman pottery of fourth-century AD date. Other features included a probable palisade slot and a shallow ditch which may define the crest of the slope at the western end of the ridge. Further east were more ditches, shallow pits, and other features. A number of flints and fire-cracked pebbles were also found, as well as sherds of pottery that may be of Iron Age date. Work on the isolated knoll failed to locate features, but revealed more flints and fire-cracked pebbles.
Excavation and evaluation work at High Crosby, on the north bank of the River Eden, has revealed evidence of hitherto unknown prehistoric activity in this area. Neolithic features associated with pottery, palisaded enclosures with surviving timbers (perhaps of middle to late Bronze Age date), a wide scatter of worked flints, and the large numbers of fire-cracked pebbles which had certainly been introduced to the site all point to a much more extensive use of the landscape in ancient times than had been previously recognised. Neolithic and Bronze Age settlements are rare throughout Britain but they are especially significant in Cumbria, where there has been so little work on non-Roman sites. The discovery of late Roman pottery in association with ditches is also of great interest in this area (within the Hadrian's Wall World Heritage Site), perhaps representing a late Roman native settlement, or possibly even a signal tower behind Hadrian's Wall (which lies some 0.5km to the north).
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