An army of volunteers donned their wellies and got their hands dirty in the search for hidden Roman treasure.

Dozens of people turned up at Carlisle Cricket Club over the weekend to be part of a massive archaeological dig.

It has emerged that the site was once home to a fourth century Roman bathhouse. Efforts are now underway to unearth some of its hidden treasures, which could be of global importance.

Organisers had appealed for volunteers to take part in a massive dig, which will be continuing at the Edenside site for the next month.

Among those there at the weekend was Juliet Giecco, with her three children Anna, 16, Sylie, 14, and Madeleine, 12.

Her husband Frank is technical director at Wardell Armstrong Archaeology, which is in charge of the historic site.

Juliet, a teaching assistant at William Howard School, said the whole family are fascinated by archaeology so it was too good an opportunity to miss.

"The kids have taken part in a few community excavations in the past few years," she said.

"For me, it's my first time working on a Roman bath house. For the kids, they just enjoy the digging and doing something a bit different. Everyone who was there enjoyed it. Some were students, some were just interested in the site and its history.

"It's been hard work. There's quite a lot of shovelling and wheelbarrowing at this stage, but it will be worth it."

She also hopes there will be a chance to bring William Howard pupils down to the site during the excavation.

Also there was Patricia Shaw, of Appleby, with her husband Mick Yates. She said: "I've worked with Wardell Armstrong before but I've wanted to get some more digging experience.

"We excavated a bath house near Cockermouth in 2005 and that was amazing. When they said they'd this I had to get involved. It's very exciting. I don't think they ever imagined this was here at the cricket club, right in front of our noses."

The remains of the building, which experts believed housed the prestigious Ala Petriana - a crack Roman cavalry regiment based at Stanwix - was uncovered during an initial dig commissioned by the cricket club as part of plans to build a new pavilion.

Up to 15 people a day will be involved in the dig daily - except Sundays - until October 7.

Mr Giecco said: "We've got well over 100 people taking part, some of who are coming every day for the full four-and-a-half weeks and others who are just coming for one day or a few days."

They had originally planned for five volunteers to be on site every day, but because of the high level of interest, this has grown.