The Fratry Project, Carlisle Cathedral, Cumbria/ Archaeological Report

During the evaluation, three trenches were excavated by hand, to the north of the Fratry porchway in the footprint of the proposed new development. The trenches were of variable size and shape, and attained differing depths within various internal strategically-placed sondages. They demonstrated that significant archaeological deposits are present within the area of the proposed development, but, with the exception of some of the post-medieval structural remains, most are blanketed beneath thick bands of post-medieval demolition material, probably relating to the
seventeenth-century reorganisation of the Cathedral Precinct. The shallowest medieval remains occurred in Trench 7, where the foundations of the western cloistral range and a robbed-out floor surface, lay some 0.75m below current ground level. No articulated burials were identified within any of the trenches.
The relatively substantial assemblage of material finds comprised domestic refuse, personal items and building material, dating from the medieval period to the
nineteenth-century, but also including residual Roman remains. The majority of the medieval finds, including the floor tiles and window glass fragments, were recovered
from demolition rubble deposited during the post-medieval period.