The Archaeology of Manchester in 20 Digs

Michael Nevell

• Publisher: Amberley Publishing
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781445694290
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Photography

Manchester has always had the ability to reinvent itself. Evolving from a Roman fort to an Elizabethan linen market town and a Georgian market centre, it became the world's largest cotton spinning town in the early nineteenth century. In the Victorian period it was a commercial, engineering and port city. After industry declined in the mid-twentieth century Manchester re-emerged as an education, music and sports destination. The urban regeneration needed to revive Manchester was an archaeological opportunity to explore the city's deep roots and its more recent radical past. Over fifty digs have been undertaken since 2000, changing our understanding of the city's origins, which are prehistoric, Roman, and international.Archaeological remains from bricks and cobbles to pots and glass bottles have helped to bring to life the world's first industrial city, with its pioneering canals and railways, filth and poverty. Even the city's newer history of live music has been rediscovered through modern archaeology.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Introduction
• Dig 1 - Manchester’s First Archaeologist – Bruton at Roman Manchester (1906–7)
• Dig 2 - The Deansgate Dig – The Beginnings of Community Archaeology (1972)
• Dig 3 - Manchester and Early Christianity – The Manchester Wordsquare (1978)
• Dig 4 - The Northgate Roman Dig (1979–81)
• Dig 5 - Peel Hall, Wythenshawe (1981)
• Dig 6 - The First Mancunians – Manchester Runway 2 (1997 to 1998)
• Dig 7 - Hanging Ditch and Bridge, Medieval Manchester (1998–2002)
• Dig 8 - Medieval Iron Making – Whitecarr Lane, Wythenshawe (2003)
• Dig 9 - Living in the Industrial City – Hardman Street (2002 and 2004)
• Dig 10 - Bottling the Past – The Jersey Street Glassworks (2003)
• Dig 11 - I Dig Moston Hall (2003–5)
• Dig 12 - Dig Manchester – Northenden Corn Mill (2005–2006)
• Dig 13 - The First Mancunians – The Roman Cemetery and Vicus at Great Jackson Street (2007–2008)
• Dig 14 - Hell on Earth – Loom Street Housing and the Ancoats Slums (2007)
• Dig 15 - Jersey Street Court Housing, Ancoats (2011)
• Dig 16 - Excavating John Ashbury’s Carriage & Iron Works, Gorton (2012 and 2014)
• Dig 17 - Dig Greater Manchester: Hulme Barracks and the Peterloo Massacre (2013)
• Dig 18 - Manchester’s First Cotton Mill – Arkwright’s Shudehill Mill (2005 and 2014–2015)
• Dig 19 - Dying in Industrial Manchester – The Cross Street Chapel Graveyard (2014–2015)
• Dig 20 - Digging The Reno, Hulme (2017)
• Acknowledgements
• About the Author
• Bibliography