After the Romans

When the excavations at Church Chare were first begun, it had been hoped that some trace might be found of the followers of St. Cuthbert who settled in Chester-le-Street in the 9th century A.D. The fort probably presented quite a sizable ruin to them when they first saw it, and this might be indicated by the fact that the church lands more or less incorporated the area of the old fort and the church itself was built directly on top of the site of its headquarters building.

Unfortunately, it soon became apparent that the Church Chare site had been quite radically engineered after the Romans left, removing much of the Roman material on the western half of the site and virtually everything above it. Finds of medieval pottery and various pits and traces of industrial activity came to light, but these too were rendered largely unintelligible by the later activity on the site.

Much of this engineering of the site may have been to do with the construction of two sets of cottages on the site, the first before Church Chare had attained its sweeping bend and was still a right angle. These first cottages even seem to have used part of the east wall of the officer's quarters as a footing for one wall. The second, later set of cottages respected the present line of Church Chare and were only demolished comparatively recently.

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