Maryport Roman Settlement Project

John Zant

A research and community-training excavation took place over two summer seasons in 2013-14 within the Roman extramural settlement at Maryport, including the backplot. The primary aim of the project, which attracted around 125 volunteers, was to enhance understanding of the settlement through the excavation of a single building plot, the first time this had been undertaken at Maryport in modern times. Using geophysical survey evidence, a plot located 150 m north-east of the fort, adjacent to the main Roman road, was selected for investigation. 0The earliest feature was a small ditch, possibly part of a late pre-Roman or early Roman field system, but there was little evidence for activity before the late Hadrianic period (c AD 130+), when a timber 'strip building' was constructed on the street frontage. This went out of use in the mid-second century, but was immediately replaced by a...