The Carlisle Journal in April 1833 reported “digging for a well in a yard in Finkle Street, labourers came to a stone pavement at a depth of six feet ... at 12 feet they came to the skeleton of a horse with several pieces of leather”.

In the 1856 laying of sewers in Finkle Street, Hugh McKie recorded: “It would appear that the street ... was formerly a ditch.”

This explains the depth of finds in digging the well. Early maps showed it as ‘Hadrian’s Vallum’ but it proved to be the medieval ditch which divided the city and castle.

McKie observed that crossing the ditch opposite the east side of Castle Street, “was found what appeared to be a bridge of strong oak timber, having a breadth of nine feet nine inches”.

This was again reported by Dorothy Charlesworth in 1973, when, in the formation of Castle Way, she saw “some massive timbers, part of a bridge to the castle”.

RS Ferguson had written in 1888 “there was once a moat with a drawbridge, somewhere in Castle Lane, just in advance of the gateposts”, which stood between the Salvation Army barracks and Finkle Street.

It was to Finkle Street that Robert Hogg, curator of Tullie House, turned his attention in the 1950s.

He was struck by a reference that the Norman walls of Carlisle stood on the foundations of an older Roman wall.

In March 1959, Hogg excavated the north walls on Finkle Street and wrote: “A small exploratory excavation was carried out at the entrance to Victoria Park, for the purpose firstly of examining the foundations of the medieval city wall... and secondly of searching for remains of the defences of the Roman town.” In digging he thought he had located “the position of the ditch system of the north east corner of the Roman town”.

A photograph shows further work being carried out in May 1960 when Mr Hogg investigated the medieval ditch.

Other Tullie House photographs show this was on the north side of Finkle Street opposite the Friends Burial Ground.

City minutes reported that “during recent excavations by the Keeper of Archaeology on the conjectural site of the northern defences of Roman Carlisle, a cross section of a multiple ditch system had been obtained”.

City minutes from February 27, 1961, record that “the Keeper of Archaeology obtained permission from the War Office for two or three trial trenches to be dug against the city wall in Finkle Street for a sum not exceeding £50”.

So in June 1961, Mr Hogg “at the request of the local authority dug trial shafts against the face of the city wall”, the intention being that soil could be removed “so that the medieval town wall may be displayed as a permanent feature”.

Further work was carried out on Finkle Street in May 1972 by Dorothy Charlesworth and prisoners from Durham Prison in advance of the building of Castle Way.

Because of the use of prisoners, the public were kept away and the excavation results were never published.

The only record in print is an article in The Cumberland News with a photograph of the dig in progress, which was again “in an attempt to study the northern defences of Roman Carlisle”.