The Armitt Museum & Library
Ambleside Roman Fort
Ambleside Roman Fort is thought to have been occupied by a garrison of 500 infantry (a cohors quingenaria) between the first and fourth centuries AD (Gentry 1976, 57 and Potter 1979, 357). The fort was extensively excavated between 1913 and 1920 (Haverfield and Collingwood 1914; Collingwood 1915, 1916 and 1921).
At the end of the first season of excavation Ambleside's Armitt Library was asked to provide temporary accommodation for the finds. In the following years new finds were stored in a damp hut next to the site, a less than satisfactory arrangement. In 1929 legal ownership of all these finds was passed to the Armitt Trust who continue to have responsibility for this Collection.
Haverfield and Collingwood's excavations were largely directed towards the recovery of the site plan and consequently the recording of artifacts context was minimal. Some individual items were discussed and described in the transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society but in general the excavators were often quite dismissive in their description of the state and quality of their finds.
In 1983, thanks to funding from the Manpower Services Commission the Armitt Trust was able to employ an archaeologist to catalogue the Collection. The card catalogue that was produced formed the basis for further work by the Archaeological unit at Tyne and Wear Museums Service in 1992. These paper records were transferred to computer in 2000.
A sub-set of fields from this computerised catalogue have been deposited with the Archaeology Data Service and this database has been made available for downloading.