Carlisle and Caldew FAS, Willowholme, Carlilse, Cumbria ARCHAEOLOGICAL BOREHOLE SURVEY AND WATCHING BRIEF

As part of the Carlisle and Caldew Flood Alleviation Scheme (FAS), the Environment Agency (EA) authorised the construction of a flood defence wall and embankment on the Willowholme Industrial Estate, immediately to the west of the West Coast Mainline Railway, Carlisle, Cumbria (NY 392 565). The proposed flood defences are situated within the boundary of the Hadrian's Wall World Heritage Site (WHS; National Monument No CU2819). The flood wall was to be supported on a series of 7m-deep piles, some 80 of which lay in two staggered 135m-long rows within the Scheduled Monument Area for the Roman Vallum. The Vallum was a substantial earthwork that ran parallel to the southern (inner) edge of Hadrian's Wall and, although the position of the Wall at Willowholme has been recorded during excavations in the 1880s, the exact location of the Vallum in the area is uncertain.