presence in the village, as with the rest of Furness, is currently under investigation. Finds of Roman coins, including pre-invasion issues, from Furness indicate that the Romans were active in the area from the earliest days of the Roman invasion. An article published in 2007 made a claim for Roman military activity focused on what later became Dalton-in-Furness: the medieval secular capital of Furness. The author bases his argument on observations made by an 18th-century antiquarian; unsupported by 20th and 21st century investigations providing evidence for Roman archaeology. Such evidence would undoubtedly include Roman finds linked to contexts discovered in the evaluation of archaeological loci where Roman activity is suspected during late 20th and early 21st century urban development. Despite the cutting of many service and foundation trenches in Dalton, no such evidence has been revealed. This strongly suggests that this approach remains speculative at best. Roman finds, including coins, have been found by metal-detector users to the west of Great Urswick. Field survey by the Urswick Origins Discovery Programme (UODP) in 2003 and 2004 also located and recorded a significant quantity of worked red, (St Bees) sandstone masonry in the walls of the Church of St Mary and St Michael, (see below) and in field walls to the north-west and west of the church. St Bees sandstone is not native to Urswick parish. The sandstone found by the UODP teams is considered unlikely to have belonged to a (long-demolished) medieval building or buildings; partly because the majority of it occurs in field walls and in the church and churchyard walls between the medieval villages of Great and Little Urswick. Some pieces also show distinctive tooling and other features (such as bar or cramp slots) that find comparison with tooling and features on masonry from Roman sites on Hadrian's Wall and its hinterland. Sandstones are known to have been imported and worked for specific architectural features in Roman forts elsewhere in Cumbria – for example, at Waterhead (Ambleside) and Hardknott in Eskdale. In 2004 the UODP ran an evaluation excavation project alongside a commissioned professional geophysical survey, (by UK-based GSB Prospection) of 1.08ha of two fields to the west and south-west of Great Urswick's church, (see below) to test the results from the field survey. The results of the geophysical survey were published – Life Before Barrow – Part 1: Urswick Origins Discovery Programme Interim Report 1 – 2004-5: First