As I walked down Piccadilly one Thursday afternoon not long ago, I saw a notice outside our parish church announcing that a famous musician was to address a lunch-time audience on the subject of ‘The Virtues of Silence’. Rather ruefully I reflected that such virtues are not permitted to Presidents at Anniversary time; and so my fancy lightly turned to thoughts of the Address to be delivered to you today. For all that silence may be golden, none the less speech is silvern, and how better may I preface my remarks on this particular occasion than with the expression of a heartfelt salute to the Silver Jubilee of our Royal Patron, Her Most Sacred Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second? We who are, as it were, second generation Elizabethan antiquaries shall be sharing in the national jollifications and observing them in our own traditional fashion later this evening; and I shall then take the opportunity of reading to the assembled company the text of the Loyal Address which the Society will be transmitting to Her Majesty. Only a fortnight ago, and within but a few days of Her Majesty's return from Australia and New Zealand, it was my privilege to be amongst those gathered to witness the Queen distribute the Royal Maundy in Westminster Abbey, surely as moving a testimony to the continuity of our institutions, and to our Sovereign Patron's personal devotion to them, as any antiquary could wish; indeed to one of those present it recalled a far, far earlier ceremonial connected with queens and the abbey, recorded in a chance reference of 1246 to Henry III requesting the chaplains of London to celebrate, and I quote, ‘the anniversary of the three queens buried at Westminster’, that is to say Sebert's Queen Ethelgotha (d. 615), Edward the Confessor's Queen Edith, and Henry I's Queen Matilda (d. 1118): a piece of ‘mere antiquarianism’ perhaps, but one surely not unbefitting our own anniversary.

A leaden anchor-stock found off Porth Felen at the tip of the Llŷn peninsula in 1974 is described. So far unique in British waters, the stock is of a Mediterranean pattern obsolete by the time of the Roman conquest of Wales. From its decoration it may be assigned to the late second century B.C., or possibly a little later. The typology of ancient anchors is considered, and the reasons which may have brought a small Mediterranean craft to that spot are reviewed. The stock is now in the National Museum of Wales.

The Department of Urban Archaeology, City of London, was set up in December 1973 as part of Guildhall Museum, now the Museum of London. Since then it has excavated sixteen sites and carried out numerous watching briefs. Most of the formal excavations have been conducted on the vital waterfront sites, made available for the first time, and on the Roman and medieval defences of the City. Important evidence of the elusive Saxon occupation is gradually coming to light, and the work is accompanied by specialist research, particularly finds, environmental and documentary.

Further work was undertaken in the nave of the ruined church at Stone-by-Faversham in 1971–2 as part of the programme of its consolidation as an Ancient Monument by the Department of the Environment. Evidence was found for a pre-Conquest stone nave, itself possibly preceded by a timber nave; the stone nave was extended westwards in the twelfth or thirteenth century. West of the pre-Conquest nave there were traces of a Roman building distinct from the Roman mausoleum incorporated in the chancel of the church. The dating evidence of Roman and Saxon coins and pottery is discussed.

The discovery of a large number of sheep bones at Baynard's Castle prompted a re-examination of the evidence for the appearance of the late medieval sheep. Previous studies have been based on a miscellaneous collection of depictions from various countries and media without attempting to distinguish which of them were copied from older pattern books. The sheep placed at the feet of woolmen on their brasses could not have been derived from existing patterns and their reliability as evidence for the appearance of the contemporary sheep was confirmed by comparing them with surviving bones. The present state of the evidence suggests that there were no marked regional variations in the sheep at this period; however, much more material needs to be examined but the methods used for this survey could be applied to other species.