Carlisle Archives Project Stage 2- Volume 1: Report

This report was produced at the request of English Heritage. It was originally written in 2005 prior to publication of Management of Research Projects in the Historic Environment (MoRPHE) (English Heritage 2006) and Strategic Framework for Historical Environment Activities and Programmes in English Heritage (SHAPE) (English Heritage 2008), but submission was delayed as a result of issues concerning the Carlisle City Council lease on Shaddon Mill, which made timetabling impossible. These have now been resolved. The report has therefore been redrafted in the spirit of both MoRPHE and SHAPE, and a Business Case, SHAPE Number, outline Product Description, details of Ownership and Risk Log have been placed with Section 12. In addition, where items in the report are attributable to elements of MoRPHE, the MoRPHE title has been added. This report, in effect, relates to Review Point R3 (English Heritage 2006, 14).

From 1977 to 2001, Carlisle Archaeological Unit (CAU), later Carlisle Archaeology Ltd, University of Bradford (CAL), carried out a great deal of work within the City and District of Carlisle and more widely in Cumbria. When the company ceased trading in August 2001, basic information for most of its projects had not been placed in the public domain, nor was there a coherent overview of the unit’s archive. With the demise of CAL, the need for a detailed assessment of the archive became apparent, and English Heritage therefore proposed a three-stage Archives Project, beginning with the compilation of a definitive gazetteer of all CAU/CAL projects. OA North was commissioned to undertake Stage 1 in 2003. The work resulted in the creation of a database containing basic information for all archaeological events, together with a digital location map and a report (OA North 2003), which provided an overview and analysis of the data. The report also contained recommendations and a project design for a detailed Stage 2 assessment of the individual event archives, which OA North was subsequently commissioned to undertake in 2004. The results of Stage 2 are presented in the present report, together with recommendations and an updated project design for a programme of remedial works to be undertaken during Stage 3, prior to final archive deposition.