Shieling at Gillalees

Earthwork enclosures at The Beacon with great views across north Cumbria and into southern Scotland

We began the day as usual, painfully early. I was awoken from sweet slumber by a bang on the door which could have turned Elton John straight. The day had begun, peril lay ahead. Once we congregated as a group we split the group into two teams. Caron, Kimberley, Elliot and Chris were stationed at Gillalees Farm whilst myself, Hamish and Richard braved the journey to Tower Brae. The weather was mild with bouts of Apollos ray’s scattered amongst the pastures. My team had trudged through the various excrement and rush, which saturated our boots along the way, finally ascending up the hill toward Tower Brae. On the ascend we came across various archaeological wonders including an abandoned lime kiln and various shielings. Hamish and I were trusted (miraculously) with the highly technological GPS system powered by Magellan, to whom I will write a strongly worded message about their abysmal software. Using this fruitful software we were able to record and measure the sites which enabled us to locate them on a map later. On the other side of the moors, Caron and her team were working on topographical  surveying. They focused heavily on a shieling they discovered previously and also on an earthwork mound. Caron and her team also explored multiple rock art sites, amongst which they found several new ones! All in all the day was an archaeological marvel – one didn’t have to throw the trowel in! (apologies). The following day we spent the majority of our time within the comfort of the research lair, which by night is my personal boudoir. Slaves to the modern fruits of technological software we logged and tracked all our previous pursuits on the computers provided.

(Caron says, ‘the archaeology students have all put in a lot of work over the last couple of days, learning new skills. We have also had a lot of interest from the farmer and his family, and it has been great to show them some of the sites we have discovered’).