The Digs

Sartorial standards in archaeology have gone sadly downhill since 1899, when Robert Hamnett (right in pic) ran the first organised dig at Melandra before handing over to the Manchester Classical Association. Professional standards, however, have improved; the first diggers didn’t record or label things properly or clear up after themselves, creating headaches for those who came after.

By 1906, though, when R.S Conway’s “Melandra Castle” was published, they had managed to work out the fort’s main features. That was the first and last book; almost everything since has been published only in academic journals, although there’s a brief account by Tony Ward and Mike Brown at on our website, a chapter in Mark Patterson’s 2015 “Roman Derbyshire”, and a short video on YouTube.

When they returned in 1935, the Classical Association brought in a much better archaeologist, Dr James Alexander Petch, who came back for a further spell in 1958. His last act, in 1962, was to persuade the Ministry of Works to bulldoze the spoil heaps left by the early diggers.

An informal group of young people was then beginning to explore the areas around the fort, finding on the south-west side, where sand and gravel quarrying had undermined the corner tower, lots of artefacts including leather and wood items which had slid down the hillside. In 1963 some of these items were exhibited at the Victoria Hall, and in 1965, to raise awareness of the fort and as a contribution to the Borough’s Centenary, a film, “Ardotalia” was produced, with pupils from St Philip Howard acting out a battle between Romans and Brigantes.

By then, Manchester Corporation was planning the Gamesley estate, and what had become the “Melandra Field Group” persuaded the Ministry of Works to commission the archaeologist Peter Webster to conduct first a survey and then “rescue digs” to find and record any Roman remains before they were destroyed. Often working just ahead of the bulldozers, between 1966-69 Dr Webster and the Field Group volunteers found buildings, roads, a defensive ditch, cremation burials and metal-working sites.

However, there was then no Lidar or modern geophys to show remains below ground, and they were often spotted first by the workmen levelling the site, so inevitably some were missed – the outline of a big building was seen later, on an overlooked air photo. It was also assumed at the time that in the wild and woolly Pennines there wouldn’t be a large “vicus” or civil settlement. We now know that’s not so, and that it may have extended further, and in 2019 GLAS went looking, doing some geophys and exploratory digs on the grass verges near the fort.

In 1972 the Borough Council bought the fort and 33 acres round it, and in August of that year Field Group member Mike Brown discovered the bath house, teetering on the edge of a landslip outside the north-west corner. The Council then brought in Dr John Peter Wild of Manchester University and his wife Felicity, who with the help of the Field Group and students excavated the bath house and began a series of summer digs, annually till 1988 then every two years till 1998.

By then it was nearly 100 years since Hamnett’s first dig. However, most of the fort is still unexcavated. We know that in the centre there were wooden buildings – barrack blocks, granaries, storehouses and latrines – but we don’t know exactly where. And then there’s the outside, much of it excavated hurriedly and perhaps incompletely in the 1960s. Archaeologists think that with enough money – modern archaeology, not done Hamnett’s way, is a very expensive business – there’s a great deal more to be discovered. Next time we’ll look at some of the things dug up so far, and where they are now.

NEXT – Part 3: The Finds

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