In the parishes of Stanwick St. John and Forcett-with-Carkin, eight miles north of Richmond in the North Riding of Yorkshire, are more than six miles of rampart and ditch, forming a complex of enclosures of a very remarkable kind. Since Leland's day they have been a sufficiently notorious archaeological problem, but their size and remoteness on the one hand, and possibly the counter-attractions of Hadrian's Wall on the other, have combined to deter analytical investigation of them.

Among the most remarkable discoveries made in the course of the Society's excavations at Stonehenge in 1919–26 was the discovery of a series of small pits set in a circle immediately within the bank of the surrounding earthwork. Some of these had left slight surface depressions which had been recorded by John Aubrey on his plan of Stonehenge made in 1666, and the pits were appropriately named the Aubrey Holes in recognition of this sound piece of field observation by a pioneer antiquary.

The Isles of Scilly, situated in the Atlantic Ocean twenty-eight miles south-west of Land's End in Cornwall, have long been noted for their number of chambered tombs. Borlase bears witness to this, and has often been quoted by later writers. He dug into some of the tombs with disastrous results and many another must have done the same. For in general appearance the tombs of Scilly are like their fellows in many other parts of Britain; their chambers are completely empty. G. Bonsor was fortunate in finding one partly intact on Gugh which he excavated carefully, as is shown by his drawings, published in these pages by Dr. H. O'Neill Hencken. It should be noted that he found evidence of many cremations, but as secondary burials, following a primary inhumation. There was no direct dating evidence available, but the finds included that which until 1948 was the only piece of bronze recorded as found in an English chambered tomb.

Caister Castle (see air view, pi. xvi, a) stands on the low ground about half a mile north-west of the little village of West Caister, one and a half miles from the rapidly encroaching sea, and some four miles from Great Yarmouth. Interest has always attached to the castle owing to the facts that it was built by the famous Sir John Fastolf, and that it played a part in the chequered fortunes of the Paston family, so brilliantly illuminated by their correspondence. The ruins, with their tall, slender tower, have also attracted attention as an early and splendid example of the use of brick; and we hope to show that the affinities of the castle lie in a quarter hitherto unsuspected, and that it is an important architectural document in the history of the cultural relationships of England during the first half of the fifteenth century.

Well might Gailliard rate the hamaide among difficult charges, nor have later armorists done much to dissipate the fog, rather the reverse. The problem is threefold. What is the meaning of the word ? How should the charge be represented in armory? And how should the term be used in blazoning? Those are the three aspects under which the charge will be considered in this essay, looking first to medieval sources, then to the later French writers, and lastly to English heraldry.