An archaeological services business has been playing its part to piece together the history of Britain at development sites across Cumbria and beyond for nearly 20 years.


Greenlane Archaeology, in Ulverston, is called in to assess areas and buildings tipped for everything from housing estates to barn conversions as part of planning rules.
Director Dan Elsworth and his team of three are just a few of the thousands of archaeologists working in the sector across the UK.

Since the 1990s planning rules have required developers to carry out an archaeological assessment, similar to the ecological assessment conducted to confirm the presence of species such as newts or bats.
Originally from Ulverston, Dan always had an interest in the history of the area and went to study archaeology at Edinburgh University before returning to work for an archaeological company in Lancaster.

Director Dan Elsworth Director Dan Elsworth (Image: Greenlane Archaeology)

He started Greenlane Archaeology in 2005, which can be involved in up to 10 projects at any one time across the North West.
Dan and his team work on a wide range of developments including new housing estates, landscaping projects and assessing heritage buildings which are set to be converted.

The investigations will often be a desk-based exercise at first, analysing maps and records, and can progress into digging exploratory trenches or carrying out geophysical surveys.
“Normally we try and get in before anybody else gets on site,” said Dan.
“I think people assume we’re diving under JCB buckets, but the whole point is that it is supposed to be built into the planning process now. People have this idea that builders find something and then we turn up, but in reality it has usually been found months in advance of them getting onsite.”
Although the majority of sites do not uncover anything of archaeological significance, the team has come across finds from many different epochs, taking in the Bronze Age and medieval periods, right up to the more recent history of the Second World War.
In 2015 Dan found a series of Bronze Age cremation urns in pits at Jack Hill, in Allithwaite, near Grange, on the site of a housing development.

“We dug what we call evaluation trenches, just to see if there was anything there, because we knew there had been some cremations found in the area,” he said.