Archaeologists Say They’ve Unearthed Britain’s Largest Known Viking-Age Building Beneath a Family Farm

With the help of more than 50 volunteers, archaeologists say they have identified the largest Viking-Age building ever excavated in Britain—a rare insight into the early medieval period’s Anglo-Scandinavian culture.

The structure was buried beneath a field at High Tarns Farm in Cumbria, a county in northwest England. Researchers from the nonprofit Grampus Heritage identified the remnants of a “large hall”—measuring roughly 160 feet long and 50 feet wide—last summer, according to a statement from archaeologist Mark Graham.

Among the most intriguing finds were ten post holes that hinted at the structure’s size and shape, a kiln for drying grains and a pit for producing charcoal. Radiocarbon testing found that one of the post holes dated to between 990 and 1040.

“The significance of this discovery, in shedding light on the early medieval period and social structure in rural Cumbria and more widely, is hard to overstate,” Graham says.

He adds that similar sites have been found in the manor farms of Denmark and other Scandinavian countries. But while Viking history in Cumbria is well-documented, archaeologists have unearthed few buildings, likely because later settlements and dwellings were built over the same sites. That makes the find at High Tarns all the more unique.

Researchers became interested in the site in 2022, when Grampus Heritage identified crop marks in aerial photos of the area. The following year, the organization conducted a geophysical survey, which hinted at a site of archaeological interest beneath the surface.

At this stage, the team suspected the site was related to Holme Cultram, a local Cistercian monastery founded in the 12th century. But the subsequent excavation uncovered a different side of Cumbria’s past.

During the dig, Neil and Irene Armstrong, who have lived on the land for more than two decades, temporarily moved their heifers from the field, as the couple told the Cumbria News & Star’s Paul McTaggart in August.

More than 50 local volunteers spent 12 days digging trenches that uncovered structural features, artifacts and “thousands of tiny oat grains,” as Don O’Meara, an environmental archaeologist with Historic England, told BBC News’ Federica Bedendo during the excavation.

“That excavation [was] totally delivered by community volunteers giving their time every day to come out to the trenches and uncover our shared past,” Graham tells BBC Radio Cumbria.

While the volunteers were able to carefully extricate dateable samples from the remnants of a post hole and the so-called “corn dryer,” most of the building’s surfaces have since been plowed over by centuries of farming, according to the statement. Under these conditions, the preservation of any Viking-Age structures is rare.

“It’s crazy what they’ve found in such a small space when you think about it,” Irene told the News & Star. “We’ve had a few farmers wishing they had something like this in their field.”