Lowther Castle Gardens, Cumbria- Archaeological Survey Report

The Landscape Agency Commissioned Oxford Archaeology North (OA North) to undertake a landscape survey of the gardens of Lowther Castle, Cumbria (NY 5220 2382; Fig 1), in order to inform a sympathetic restoration of the grounds by Lowther Estates. The work was undertaken in accordance with a project design prepared by OA North (Appendix 1), which was in accordance with a verbal brief by the Landscape Agency. The study followed on from a documentary study undertaken by the Landscape Agency (2002) and entailed a detailed survey to establish the survival of the garden features in order to determine which periods of development were represented within the surviving remains.
The study entailed compiling all pertinent historic mapping within a Geographic Information System (GIS). The historic maps were then aligned to the modern OS base map using a process called ‘Rubber Sheeting’ in ArcMap. Following this, a previous topographic survey of the gardens, undertaken by Survey and Engineering Projects (2007), was then enhanced by an additional field survey (undertaken at the end of April 2007), to identify all extant garden features. The survey results were superimposed onto the adjusted historic mapping to allow an assessment of the chronology of the garden remains, and to produce phased plans of the garden layout.