The fifth season of the current Verulamium Excavations lasted from 29th July to 23rd September 1959, a period of 8 weeks of exceptionally dry weather. Work was done on a slightly smaller scale than previously, the highest daily number of helpers being about 75. The main work was undertaken in insulae XIV, XXI, XXVII, and XXVIII; in addition a trench was cut in the Theatre and another through the defences on the north-east side of insula XVIII.

The carved marble fragment illustrated in plate IX and in the accompanying drawing (fig. 1) is walled into the right-hand side of the entrance to the museum of Riom, a small town about ten miles north of Clermont-Ferrand, in the department of Puy-de-Dôme. It is labelled ‘Fragment d'un tombeau gallo-romain’; and although nothing further seems to be known either about the circumstances of its discovery or how it came to enter the museum collections, to judge from the other lapidary fragments with which it is displayed there is a strong probability that it was found locally.

At the north-west corner of Lancaster House, near the ground now concreted for a car park, lies a sealed, ruinous, subterranean vault, and in that vault, as in some folk-tale about the secrets of the hills, there stands a riderless horse, with an attendant in an inner room a few paces away. It is nearly twenty years since he was visible to mortal eyes; the last living person known to have seen him is my colleague Mr. Arthur Trotman, who tried indeed to move him from his position, but was dissuaded. Not without reason, indeed, for an enemy land-mine had fallen in the neighbourhood and caused a considerable degree of damage, including the subsidence of the entire corner of the building. The sturdy frame of the horse was found to be actually supporting the roof and wall of the corridor in which he stood, and it was only too likely that further movement might bring down the vaulting on him and on those who had ventured to disturb him. Further investigation was discouraged, rubble and concrete were poured into the crater above, and the vault was left sealed and inaccessible beneath the newly created terra firma.

In May 1957 a mail shirt of quite exceptional quality was acquired for the Tower of London Armouries. The purchase was made through Master Sergeant G. A. Gordon, a member of the United States Army serving in Germany, who was good enough to draw the writer's attention to the shirt and subsequently to arrange for it to be sent to the Tower for examination.

A two-month season of excavation was carried out, on behalf of H.M. Ministry of Works, during September and October 1958 in the grounds of Brough House at Brough-on-Humber, the area which was originally occupied by the north-west corner of the Roman town of Petuaria.