The former Roman fortress at Carlisle was probably at least partly reoccupied during the Viking period, but apart from the cemetery discussed here (McCarthy et al., Chapter 9) we know very little about its extent and topography as a settlement. The only significant urban centre in the north-west from which we have significant archaeological evidence of the Viking period is Chester. From around 907 it possessed a mint, defences, a harbour, and a series of important churches. Its status was confirmed in 973 when the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that English King Edgar received the submission of six (or possibly eight) subreguli (sub-kings) from the Celtic kingdoms of northern and western Britain, at least three of whom may have been of Viking origin (Whitelock 1979, p. 228).
St John’s Church, to which we are told by John of Worcester that Edgar was rowed in a boat by the subreguli, stands outside the walls next to the site of a Roman amphitheatre and has a significant collection of 10th and 11th century red sandstone sculptures including six circle-headed crosses.
Chester’s brief occupation by Danish Vikings in 893 and 894 and its reoccupation by the Mercian English (becoming a burh in 907) took place amidst and on top of large amounts of derelict Roman masonry rubble from ruined barracks, official buildings, and storehouses, but with the fortress walls and street plan still semi-intact and discernible.
The 10th century Mercian defences of Chester were therefore partly-adapted from those of Deva, although the western and southern walls of the Roman ‘playing card’ plan were probably superseded by extensions from the northern and eastern parts of the circuit to the River Dee. The excavation at 26-42 Lower Bridge Street in 1974-1976 outside the southern Roman wall but within the larger post-907 enclosure near the harbour and bridge has produced the most complete and informative series of building remains from the 10 th and 11th centuries in Chester (Mason 1985).
Phase IV of the site, dated to the early to mid-10th century, produced evidence of three sub-rectangular timber buildings built over rock-cut cellars, with sloping entrance ways measuring 5.10 x 4.5 m and 1.8 m in depth. Their occupation may have lasted somewhat longer than the excavator suggested as they may have been modified for further occupation toward the end of the 10th century and into the 11th, after which they were re-used as tanning pits.
These buildings are similar to contemporary Anglo-Saxon urban buildings in London, Canterbury, and Oxford and later 10th century plank-constructed buildings in Coppergate, York, and Thetford. They resemble four sunken-featured buildings of later 11th century date excavated in the Hiberno-Norse town of Waterford, in 1987 and 1988 (Hurley and Scully 1997).
In Chester, these represent a type apparently restricted to the newly built-up area between the Roman walls and the river. Contemporaneous structures within the Roman walls were revealed in excavations in
FIGURE 2.8 Viking disc brooch from Chester (right) with a similar example from Dublin. (Copyrights Cheshire West, Chester Council, and National Museum of Ireland.)
The 1970s and 1980s, at Crook Street and Hunter’s Walk in the north-west quadrant of the Roman fortress reveal partial survivals of simpler, ground-based post-built hall-type structures. In the north-eastern quadrant, an open-sided shed, gravel path, corn-drying kiln, and antler-soaking pit were found at Abbey Green, in 1975-1978 (Ward 1994).
The most impressive individual artefact of Viking type from Chester is a copper alloy disc brooch found in excavations at Hunter Street School in 1981 (Figure 2.8). Measuring 3.2 cm in diameter, it consists of two separately cast discs (with the rear plain disc bearing the pin). On its convex openwork face plate is a double-contoured ribbon animal decorated with transverse billets and spiral hips coiled upon itself within the circular border. The design encompasses elements of Viking art styles of the late 9th to mid-10th centuries, and thus is probably an early to mid-10th century piece. It is paralleled by a brooch from High Street, Dublin and other examples from Cottam near York, East Anglia, and Iceland. A complete copper alloy ringed pin of the polyhedral-headed type (dated by the Dublin corpus to the 10th century) was found in excavations at Crook Street in 1973 (Ward 1994). At least three other ringed pins or parts thereof were found in the city. A ring, possibly from a ringed pin, found at Northgate Brewery is made of silver, and a stray find of a plaited gold finger ring also points to Viking connections.
Moneyers’ names on early 10th century coins of the Chester Mint include the Scandinavians Oslac and Thurstan. The presence of Scandinavians can be glimpsed in the material culture of a mixed trading population. Minor names in the city such as the now-superseded Clippe Gate and Wolfield Gate (from the Old Norse personal names Klyppr and Ulfhildr) also betray their presence.
Alan Thacker drew attention to the fact that Handbridge, a suburb across the river from the southern edge of the city, was assessed in the Domesday Book in the Anglo-Scandinavian style of carucates rather than in English hides. A reference in Domesday to the city having twelve justices is a feature more commonly found in the Danelaw (Thacker 1987 and 1988).
Some commentators have seen the city’s famous timber-framed two-storey shopping galleries known as the Rows as Scandinavian-influenced features, quoting the (not very close) analogy of the Bryggen warehouses in Bergen (Norway), although the wooden fabric of the Chester Rows has not been dated any earlier than the 13th century, well after the Viking period.
Church dedications, including the dedication to St Olave (Olaf) on Lower Bridge Street and the nearby Hiberno-Norse dedication to St Bridget confirm the place of Scandinavian and Irish Sea Viking culture in the city’s historic legacy. These topographical features in the cityscape remained in situ throughout medieval times and later as symbolic references to Hiberno-Norse ancestry, mercantile trading links, and historical prestige of the citizenry.
Similar importance can be accorded to rural parishes, church dedications, and local traditions. As research develops and changes, the preoccupations of former generations of archaeologists with structure, topography and dating are being expanded by studies of human inhabitation, experience, emotion, and embodiment (Hadley and ten Harkel 2013). Beyond the mere anonymous demography of populations, the lives and experiences men, women, children, the elderly, sick, unfree, and socially excluded, are now being studied and written into archaeological interpretation.
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