Lake District

Thursday 4 August
It rained in the morning, visibility was poor as can be seen from this view across the lake from our hotel room,

so we drove to Maryport on the coast and had a look around the harbour.

The harbour was built in the 1700s when a local landowner, Humphrey Senhouse, wanted a port to ship coal mined on his property.

Finding the information centre proved difficult as it had moved and the signage had not changed.

We visited the Roman Museum which contains finds from the Senhouse property.

The workers were instructed to use stone found on the property from a Roman fort to build houses in the town but to give the landowner any artifacts and these objects, including a series of large stone altars to the gods, are now in the museum.

The fort had been built as part of Hadrian's defence system against the Barbarians who might, but did not, attack from the sea. It is possible that a number of forts were built on the site.
A guide then showed us the area where the fort stood and described subsequent digs on the site. There will be another one next year. As well as the fort which held 1000 men there was a viscus outside the fort walls where 3000 people lived.

On the way back we stopped at White Moss Wood and went for a walk around Rydal Caves and Lake.