The purpose of this paper is to place on record several discoveries of Neolithic pottery and flint implements which have been made in East Kent during the past seventy years. The preservation of most of the pottery is due to our late Fellow Mr. W. P. D. Stebbing of Upper Deal, who also possessed a manuscript notebook kept by the late Captain C. F. Newington giving details of the finds. Mr. Stebbing also conducted a rescue excavation of the pit at Ramsgate, and kept the fragments of pot and parts of two human skulls. On the other hand, the bulk of the flint implements had been given on various occasions to the Corporation of Deal, and formed part of a collection of local antiquities housed in the Town Hall at Deal.

The excavations of 1965 were largely concerned with the examination of the field containing the east and west wings of the palace and the Great Court which lies between them. As last year's work had almost completed the outline plan of the palace, the 1965 season was concentrated upon the detailed examination of the audience chamber and the entrance hall, the sample excavation of the garden about which practically nothing was known, and the area excavation of those parts of the timber and early masonry buildings belonging to the first-period settlement which had not previously been examined. In addition to this, trial trenches were cut through the newly acquired market-garden to the west of the main site, and further trenching was carried out in the fields to the north of the north wing and the field to the south of the modern main road. The final excavation of the north wing of the palace has been postponed until next season, after the construction of the modern cover-building has been completed.

The present series of excavations at Portchester Castle have continued annually since they began in 1961. The first part of this work, covering the period from 1961 to Easter 1963, having already been described, it is the purpose of the present report to summarize the results obtained since then. In June 1963, following the demolition of the custodian's house, Mr. A. B. Norton cut a section through the ditch system of the Roman fort. In the following Easter the outer earthwork was examined and a trial area excavated within the fort in order to study the nature of the stratigraphy and to examine the particular problems involved in excavating the interior. Once the information had been obtained area excavation began in the Easter of 1965. At the same time a site outside the north wall of the fort was examined for the Ministry of Public Building and Works prior to the erection of a public lavatory and changing-rooms; limited trenching was also carried out in the Inner Bailey. The work was undertaken with the active cooperation of the Ministry of Public Building and Works and was financed by grants from the Society of Antiquaries, the Libraries and Museum Committee of the Portsmouth City Council, the Haverfield Trustees, the Joint Archaeological Committee, and by several private donations.

The group of small bronze models which forms the subject of this paper entered the British Museum in 1854 with the purchase of the Croften Croker Collection. They were said to have been found in a tumulus in Sussex, without any further details being given.

It seems worth drawing attention afresh to the small hoard of Roman silver found in 1872 between Great Horwood and Winslow, about five or six miles south-east of Buckingham. The hoard deserves to be better known than it is, and one of its most interesting components has never been illustrated; there is also another piece which is so likely to have been part of it, though now separated from the rest, that it ought at least to be recorded.

Winterton Roman villa (SE. 911182) has been known since the eighteenth century, when mosaic pavements from the site were recorded first by Charles Mitley and later by William Fowler. Only five miles north of Scunthorpe, the site (fig. 1) lies on the North Lincolnshire ironstone deposits, and the villa will ultimately be destroyed by opencast mining. In view of this threat, the Inspectorate of Ancient Monuments, Ministry of Public Building and Works, carried out a series of small-scale excavations between 1958 and 1961; in 1963 these excavations were resumed on a larger scale, and it is hoped that all the buildings will be excavated before the threat materializes. Much more remains to be done, but in view of the time already spent on the work it was felt that an interim report was called for.

An unusual little bronze mount (fig. 1, pl. XXII, 1a, b) has been found on the site of the Roman villa at Lullingstone, Kent, and is published here by kind permission of the excavator, Lt.-Col. G. W. Meates. It comes from the black level spreading over the filling of the bath block, a level which contained much late Roman material but which must be regarded as unstratified. The mount is of cast bronze and 3·6 cm. long. It is basically a bar which is flat underneath for a length of 2·3 cm., and perforated at each end; it then stretches further in one direction, rising into a curved surface underneath, with a deeply chip-carved animal head terminal on the top. A similar animal head, facing the opposite way, decorates the upper surface of the flat bar between the two perforations. The terminal animal has open jaws, and the ears stand up in relief, but the other animal head ends in a blunt nose and the ears are indicated by recessed lentoid shapes. When found, a dome-headed iron rivet was present in the middle hole, and iron rust in the end hole. These iron traces disappeared in the cleaning process.

The messenger-box is a symbol of office or badge, which is not only found in museums, but which is—at least in the Netherlands—still worn by messengers of several institutes in our day. It always bears a coat of arms and the question arises why it is called a box. The words ‘bus’, ‘Büchse’, ‘boîte’, ‘box’ are derived from the Greek word ‘pyxis’ and in former times all sorts of containers were indicated by this word. What was the reason that those badges which we know as messenger-boxes were called by that name? Have they ever been real containers? How strong must have been the tradition which has preserved the messenger-box under this very name in the shape of a badge up to the present!