Published at 19:29, Thursday, 18 December 2008

AN £11.5m Roman museum has been revealed as the key to a major tourism development planned around the Senhouse Roman Museum in Maryport.

Hadrian’s Wall Heritage Ltd announced two weeks ago that it had bought 150 acres of Maryport farmland where archaeologists can now excavate the site’s Roman fort and village, believed to contain 170 buildings.

The heritage group this week revealed that the centrepiece of the scheme will be a new museum.

The group said that the development could create up to 120 jobs.

Experts predict that the Roman Maryport project, which will be open as early as 2012, will attract up to 50,000 visitors to the area, who are expected to spend up to £4 million locally.

The project is due to start in the spring.

The new museum will house the rare collection of Roman military altar stones and Romano-British religious sculpture currently on display at Senhouse Roman Museum next to Camp Farm.

In Roman times, the site was home to around 500 people. The excavation will be the first of its kind on the frontier.

Maryport was once part of the extended defence of the Roman empire’s northernmost frontier in Britain.

Among those who campaigned for the Maryport scheme is Jane Laskey, manager of Maryport’s Senhouse Museum, which is in front of the fort site.

She said: “Hadrian’s Wall was only part of the frontier. The fort at Maryport was designed to stop people nipping round the wall from the Scottish side.

“The whole process of discovery here in Maryport will be exciting.

“Fortunately, the fort site hasn’t been built on.

“We as a museum have been working with Hadrian’s Wall Heritage for this to happen. It’s excellent news.”

Hadrian’s Wall Heritage Ltd was set up in 2006 to protect the World Heritage Site and to increase its contribution to the local and regional economy through tourism.

Chief executive Linda Tuttiett said the Maryport project could become a world class museum, throwing light on Roman life in Britain and the Maryport’s key role on the frontier system.

She said: “The purchase of the site is the first step in a £11.5 million scheme that will bring an additional 50,000 visitors to Maryport every year, spending between £3m and £4m and supporting up to 120 new jobs in the area.”

The Roman fort at Maryport, the focus of the Roman’s coastal defences in Cumbria, was surrounded by walls two metres wide and more than half a kilometre long, enclosing an area of 2.6 hectares.

The Maryport vicus, or Roman village, is the biggest and also one of the most complete and best-preserved civil settlements surveyed along the northern Roman frontier.

A geophysical survey has confirmed the outline of more than 170 buildings, suggesting that over 500 vicani lived within the settlement.

Broadcaster Eric Robson, a board member of Hadrian’s Wall Heritage Ltd, said the project would keep archaeologists busy for many years and provide visitors with a fascinating insight into Roman life in Britain.

He said: “It will also show people that there was more to Rome’s northern frontier than just the wall.”

Hadrian’s Wall Heritage Ltd hopes that the site will be open to visitors by 2012.

The plans for the new museum include galleries examining the purpose of the northern frontier, Maryport’s role in the western sea defences, life at the fort and vicus, and themes such as religion, ethnic diversity, migration and career paths.

There will also be viewing galleries to enable people to view the parts of the dig that are under way and a Roman farm attraction.

David Breeze, from Historic Scotland, an expert on Rome’s northern frontier, said: “The fort and settlement at Maryport provided most of the contents of Senhouse Roman Museum, one of the most important collections of Roman altars and sculptures from Britain, and indeed the Roman Empire.

“The excavation will enable this collection to be better understood.

“The purchase of the site also offers a wonderful opportunity to present the fort, the settlement and the collection to the public.”

Linda Tuttiett thanked trustees and staff of the Senhouse Museum, saying they had inspired the company to take on the project.

She added: “I would also like to thank Harold and Dorothy Messenger, who have owned Camp Farm for the last 60 years.

“Their interest in seeing this project come to fruition has been encouraging.”

Hadrian’s Wall Heritage Ltd thanked West Lakes Renaissance and West Cumbria Development Fund who made the purchase possible.

Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk