Archaeological work is going on as part of an ongoing major road improvement project.

A series of trenches have been dug as part of National Highway's A66 Northern Trans-Pennine project, which aims to dual the remaining sections of single carriageway and improve junctions along the whole road.

The trenches are to find if there is potential archaeology that could be impacted by the A66 scheme.

Technical director at Wardell-Armstrong, Frank Giecco, said a team of archaeologists go through each trench carefully, "cleaning them, recording them and backfilling them".

He added that a "report at the end of this work will highlight any findings and any potential mitigation work that may need to follow before the building of the road".

Lot number two – between Temple Sowerby and Church Brough – has 488 trenches that are being looked at.

The £1 billion A66 Northern Trans-Pennine Project proposes to convert the entire 50-mile stretch of the road from where it meets the M6 near Penrith to where it meets the A1M at Scotch Corner into dual carriageway.

For more information on National Highways and the work that they do, visit nationalhighways.co.uk/our-work/a66-northern-trans-pennine/.