In past years I have found that much of what I had to say about the Society overlapped with matters to which the Treasurer or the Secretary wished to refer in their reports. There are, however, this year a number of general matters which it will be useful for your President to mention. Before embarking on them there is one sad occurrence to which reference should be made. At the end of the Anniversary Meeting last year the Society's Gold Medal was presented to Professor Dorothy Garrod and those who were at the meeting will remember her charmingly elegant speech. It was very sad that she died so soon after. She was a great scholar and it did honour to the Society that she should receive so gracefully its recognition.

The Iron Age and Anglo-Saxon site at Upton near Northampton was excavated by Mr. Jackson on behalf of the Ministry of Public Building and Works, July—December 1965. In addition to Iron Age pits and ditches the principal discovery was that of a timber Saxon building which is remarkable for its combination of the structural features of a Grubenhaus with the dimensions and plan of a small timber hall. The building contained more than sixty loom-weights, and is interpreted as a weaving shed rather than a domestic occupation site. It was destroyed by fire, and charred timbers have revealed the position of internal fixed wooden furniture. From pottery and small finds it is suggested that the site was occupied in the late sixth to early seventh centuries A.D.

Excavations in 1967–8 took place on the defences, the military rampart at Watermoor, and a number of sites within the town of Corinium. The defences on the north-west were found in the station yard and in a garden 400 feet further south. Two thicknesses of wall were noted, but no evidence survived to prove whether there had been a pre-wall rampart or not. During the restoration of the north-east defences another bastion was found only 78 feet from the site of bastion 3. Sites examined within the town were in Insulae I, II, VII, XIV, XXVI, and XXX. In the latter, another section of the possible theatre wall was found, whilst in XIV a house with four mosaics was excavated. The significance of the mosaics is fully discussed.

The first-fruits of the programme of research organised under the auspices of the Dolaucothi Research Committee are presented here in a survey of the surviving surface remains from the Roman gold mine in South Wales. The mine-workings are comprehensively describedfor the first time with particular reference to the complex aqueduct system that still survives relatively intact above the main workings. In addition to the aqueduct derived from the River Cothi, a second has been tracedfrom the headwaters of the River Annell. The inter-relation of the aqueducts and their derivatives offers, it is suggested, a way to chart the over-all development of the mines. The stage is now setfor a programme of underground survey in the mine area proper and excavation on a large scale in the associated settlement nearby.

This article contains a report of excavations conducted in 196J and ig68 at the ruined church (or chapel) of Stone-by-Faversham, Kent. They were designed to establish whether or not the central part of the building (subsequently the western part of a medieval chancel) was an original Roman structure. The evidence, derived from the type of construction, an opus signinum floor, from the coins, burials, and pottery found in association with the building, all indicate that in origin it was either a mausoleum, or possibly a martyrium, probably datingfrom thefourth century A.D.

A Roman structure subsequently incorporated into a Christian church is unique in this country. The question as to when and how this transformation occurred is discussed in the context ofthepossible survival of Christianity in Sub-Roman Kent, and of St. Augustine's mission. Further excavation revealed foundations of a pre-Conquest wooden nave, and throws fresh light on the methods used by the Anglo-Saxons in building wooden churches.

Roman, Saxon, and medieval levels were examined in 1968. At Castle Yard the north end of the Norman andlater castle was uncovered. At Lankhills fifty fourth-century graves were excavated. In Lower Brook Street open-area excavation was continued into mid thirteenth-century levels on four house-plots and on St. Mary's Church, where twelve phases can now be recognized between c. 1250 and c. 1470. St. Pancras Church was located. On the Cathedral site no Belgic occupation was found. A late second- to early third-century addition to the forum was excavated, and much of its painted wall-plaster recovered. The structure was abandoned c. A.D. 300. A laterally apsed tenth-century crossing was found in the Old Minster linking two earlier buildings. After his translation in gjl from outside the church, St. Swithun's shrine appears to have stood within this link-building. At Wolvesey Roman buildings were excavated, and additions were made to the plan of the Norman palace. A second halljchamber-block of c. 1129–35 has been planned. In an appendix D. M. Wilson considers an important decorated bronze strap-end of c. A.D. 1000 found on the Old Minster site.

Two skeletons recently discovered at Sonning, Berks., were found with a sword, pin, knife, and arrowheads. The burial is considered in connection with other Viking burials known from the south of England at Santon Downham, Norfolk, Walthamstow, Essex, Reading, Berks., and Saffron Walden, Essex.

This house is shown, from both structural and documentary evidence, to have been built c. 1345 by William Hillary, a rector with Staffordshire connections. Of his work enough remains to show that it was of aisled design, with an open service bay at the lower end; the two-bay hall had a base-cruck truss. The surviving woodwork is of very high quality. The two-storey cross wing, later than the hall and originally timber-framed, is cased in brick, and this brickwork is ascribed, on both docu mentary and archaeological evidence, to yohn Croxby, rector 1460–92 and namesake of the first clerk of works of Tattershall Castle.

The later alterations to the house are worked out from structural and documentary evidence (terriers, probate inventories); later rectors, including two minor Georgian poets, are described. The paper is illustrated by plans, sections, reconstructions and photographs. It concludes with a distribution map of base-cruck halls and comments on the social context of this type of construction. Dr. Rogers has contributed the historical evidence in this paper; the other authors are responsible for the account of the structure.

The designs of the early sixteenth-century series of five tapestries on the story of Dido and Aeneas at Hampton Court Palace {Collection of H.M. the Queen) were tentatively ascribed by A. E. Popham in 1926, and following him by K. T. Parker, to ‘Aert Ortkens’. But the drawings attributed to Ortkens by successive writers since Friedländer (1921) can now be shown to represent the production of the Malines school of designers for glass and tapestry during the first third of the sixteenth century, and to include a number of early sketches by Bernard van Orley. The article suggests how the design of the second tapestry of the Dido and Aeneas seriesfitsinto van Orley's œuvre, and refers the others to minor masters of the Malines—Brussels circle round van Orley and the brothers Adrian and Peter van den Houte of Malines.