Station Street, Cockermouth, Cumbria, Archaeological Desk-Based Assessment and Watching Brief

Architects Plus propose to develop an area of land (Planning Application No: 2/03/1170), by building a retail unit and flats, adjacent to the Co-op and Post Office on Station Street, Cockermouth, Cumbria (NY 3120 3056). Following the submission of a project design, Oxford Archaeology North (OA North) was commissioned to undertake a desk-based assessment and watching brief.

The desk-based assessment was undertaken in March 2005 and involved the consultation of the Cumbria Historic Environment Record (HER) in Kendal and the Cumbria Record Office (CRO) in Whitehaven. In total, ten sites were identified within the development area and its vicinity. Three sites were identified from the HER, including two listed buildings (Sites 02 - a former subscription school and 06 - Christchurch, South Street) along with a gallows place name, indicating the probable location of such a facility (Site 05). Six sites were identified from cartographic sources, representing residential, commercial, light industrial and public buildings; these included an unidentified building, a timber yard, a Sunday school, a sawmill, and a post office with an associated lean-to structure (respectively, Sites 01, 03–05, 07-08). One site, medieval burgage plot and associated buildings, was identified from previous excavations (Site 10). All but the medieval burgage plots and possibly the gallows sites date to the post-medieval period and, where dates are available, to the nineteenth century.