22nd November 2019

2019 has been a fantastic year for publications at OA North based in Lancaster, as many projects both old and new, have come to fruition. Three monographs, four booklets, and two journal articles have all followed hot on the heels of one another in 2019, and we are on target to publish another monograph on excavation of part of the Fransciscan friary at Preston will be out early in 2020!

Two of the three monographs in the Lancaster Imprints series, on the Roman levels in the north-east of Carlisle city centre and the early medieval cemetery at St Michael’s Church, Workington, were post-excavation of excavations undertaken by the former Carlisle Archaeological Unit, and the third, on the Maryport Roman Settlement Project, was launched at the Fourteenth Hadrian’s Wall Pilgrimage.

Of the four popular publications that have been produced, two in the Greater Manchester’s Past Revealed series; Yeoman farmers and handloom weavers: the archaeology of the Kingsway Business Park, and Cutacre: excavating a prehistoric, medieval, and post-medieval landscape, were on two contrasting largely post-medieval landscapes, which will be the subject of the next monograph in the Imprints series in 2020. A third booklet was on the Carlisle Northern Development Route, with its internationally important Mesolithic/Neolithic site at Stainton West, and a fourth on the community survey and excavation project in the Duddon Valley.

OA North has for many years not just produced text and illustrations in house for our publications, but also done all our own typesetting, editing, indexing, as part of the production of all the above. Naturally this requires specialist knowledge and the post-excavation team in Lancaster, although small, has been producing our publications for over 10 years and has become a well-oiled machine.

Glass has been the theme of two journal articles, in Post-medieval Archaeology and Archaeologia Aeliana, on glassworks in Bristol and Sunderland, respectively. To add variety to the mix, an article will appear before the end of the year in the Journal of the Chester Archaeological Society on an Iron Age to Roman site in the Wirral, and several more articles are with other journals so should be out during 2020, which is shaping up to be yet another productive year!