In the Anniversary Address which I delivered last year I gave notice that to celebrate the 250th Anniversary of the Society's continuous existence there would be a party in this building. This took place on Thursday, 12th October 1967, between 5.30 and 8.30 p.m. and was the first occasion on which the newly decorated hall and staircase were visible in all their glory, and glorious they certainly are when compared with those sombre tones which formerly greeted us. Not only has marbling been substituted for dull green, but some of the Society's possessions have been put on view in the entrance hall. The floor has also been relaid. The general effect is a good deal more splendid and more welcoming than before. As in other matters, which will be mentioned later, the Society is very much indebted to our Vice-President, Mr. Dufty, for all the trouble he took in this business, and in your name I would wish to thank him for his pains.

The removal in 1937 of a hedge bank on the west side of Glen Avenue, Colchester, close by the footpath through Glebe Farm (N.G. Ref. TL 976253) led to the discovery of a small palstave with an amber bead adhering to the septum floor (Colchester and Essex Museum, Ace. No. 916. 1937; see pl. 1). Presumably, the palstave and associated bead came from the soil in the adjacent field from which the hedge bank was doubtless constructed.

In the spring of 1857 a ploughman on The Law Farm, in the parish of Urquhart, Morayshire, Scotland, turned up a group of gold ornaments. The exact number of objects is uncertain, and the relics were widely dispersed. This paper records the results of an attempt to discover the whereabouts of the surviving pieces, and makes some suggestions about the significance of the find. Although a considerable number of the torcs have been located, several still remain hidden to view, and it is one of the purposes of this paper to publicize the find in the hope that the missing objects will be identified and made known. I would be grateful for any information which could be sent to me at the Faculty of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge.

The situation, character, and antiquarian history of South Cadbury Castle, Somerset, have already been described (Alcock (1967a); (1967b)). A reconnaissance excavation in 1966 hinted that occupation of the hilltop had begun in the Early Neolithic, and after a hiatus had been resumed sometime in the Late Bronze Age. It demonstrated that from early in the pre-Roman Iron Age there was a rich and intensive occupation, during which the defences were probably built. This appeared to have been ended by a sack at the hands of the Roman invaders c. A.D. 45. Late Roman pottery, metalwork, and coins showed that activity was renewed in the third-fourth centuries A.D. Imported pottery of well-known forms proved that the site was reused in the fifth—sixth centuries. Finally, it was refortified with a mortared stone wall as a Late Saxon burh. The reconnaissance also showed that on top of the hill (fig. 1, c) rock-cut pits and post-holes were readily discernible under the turf; that on the slopes within the defences (fig. 1, B) traces of buildings of various dates had survived many centuries of ploughing; and that in the rear of the inner rampart (fig. 1, A), a great depth of hill-wash and plough-soil overlay stratified levels of the Iron Age.

This report describes the excavation of an Iron Age and Roman farming settlement at Bottom Pond Farm, Owslebury, near Winchester (Grid Reference SU 525246). Traces of Neolithic, Early Bronze Age, and earlier Iron Age occupation were found, but the main period of occupation starts in the Belgic period with both settlement material and a small cemetery containing a warrior inhumation and Belgic cremations inside rectangular enclosures. The site continues with ditched enclosures, chalk quarries, cesspits, ovens, and burials until the end of the fourth century A.D.

The pre-Roman Iron Age communities of eastern England have not received the attention afforded to those of other parts of the British Isles. Admittedly, individual sites such as West Harling and Fengate have been published in detail, and the affinities of their materials have been discussed, but little attempt has been made to study the region as a whole. The nature of the problem, however, was vividly underlined by the admirable summary published by Clarke thirty years ago (Clarke, 1939). Although at the time many scraps of evidence were available, few sites had been adequately excavated, and still fewer published. In recent years the situation has improved and it is now possible to offer a tolerably coherent consideration of the earliest phases in the Iron Age occupation of the region. Even so, the evidence is thin and without support from further controlled excavations the framework offered below can be regarded only as a basis for further discussion.

The last major season in the present series of excavations at Fishbourne took place between 29th July and 2nd September, with a labour force restricted to sixty volunteers a day. This year the main effort was concentrated upon the excavation of the garden belonging to the Flavian Palace: a substantial area was examined during the main period of work, but it was not until the early spring that the final stages were completed by a small team of volunteers working in conjunction with a mechanical excavator. Several other areas were examined during the summer. By great good fortune a small site became available for study on the south side of the modern main road, providing for the first time clear evidence that the Palace possessed a South Wing. On the main site, the east front of the aisled hall was excavated together with the early levels beneath it, and further work was undertaken on the west front of the entrance hall. Finally, some time was spent finishing details of the excavation of the area lying north of the West Wing and west of the North Wing—a site which in the previous spring had been almost totally excavated, prior to the building of the site Museum and concourse.

It is by this time axiomatic that regional studies of pottery types, wares, and fabrics can greatly expand our knowledge of the pottery industry in Roman Britain. Some of the most penetrating studies which have contributed to the subject of Romano-British coarse pottery in recent years have concerned themselves with the peculiar types and wares of individual regions, or with the geographical spread of distinctive products as mirrored in the pattern of their distribution. This outline study of two large and varied classes of common coarse wares, current in the east Midlands towards the end of the Roman period, is designed primarily to provide (a) a brief discussion of a very distinctive burnished grey ware, and (b) to record some results of further work on the remarkable north-east Midland jar types, best known in the forms of Derbyshire and Dales Ware. With the exception of these two, the major late Roman wares of the area have not been systematically studied. Taken with the recent studies on those two wares, it is intended that these notes will form a convenient introduction to the late Roman pottery industry in this region.

The purpose of this paper is briefly to make known investigation of an area of Thames terrace gravel in Essex (at N.G.R. TQ 673 803) before its rapid destruction by quarrying (pi. XLVII and figs. 1 and 2). With work still continuing, and with the bulk of the finds and records yet to be synthesized, archaeological observations must necessarily be provisional.

It is common knowledge that in the reliefs on Trajan's Column the technical skill and achievements of the Roman Army received as much attention and space as did its military prowess and successes. It is clear that emphasis laid upon military engineering was felt to be one of the most effective means of conveying the triumphal concept attached to this marble volumen. Since both Trajan, to whom the reliefs were dedicated, and Apollodorus, his architect, who is likely to have drawn the cartoons for them, were inclined to regard craftsmanship and power as equivalent expressions of Roman glory, one would expect to find in the commemorative sculpture some allusion to specific technical achievements or, at least, to the most important of these.

During excavation in 1967 of an Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Mucking in Essex, bronze belt equipment (pls. liii, liv) was found in situ on a body stain in grave 117. Its importance is immediately obvious, for not only is it a fine piece of craftsmanship and the only complete set of its kind, but it supplies the missing link between the late Roman military belt equipment and metalwork in the Quoit Brooch Style of Anglo-Saxon England. At much the same time that this buckle came to light at Mucking, another buckle of the same period, but of a different type, was found in an Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Orpington in Kent (fig. 2 a), and a few weeks later another was found in a cemetery at Bishopstone, Sussex. With the advantage of the information provided by these new buckles it is now possible to distinguish other works belonging to the same milieu, and to see problems connected with them in a different perspective.

The discovery of two fragmentary inscriptions at the auxiliary fort of Castell Collen (pl. xxia) and the newly discovered legionary fortress of Carpow (pl. xxib) has made a notable addition to the interesting group of Romano-British inscriptions in which the text is flanked by peltae, the terminals of which have been treated as birds' (or griffins') heads. The Castell Collen fragment was found during excavation of the extramural bath building in 1956 where it appeared face downwards, reused as a paving slab; the excavator suggested that it might originally have stood over the east gate of the fort and used it as supporting evidence, for reasons which will be considered below, for the view that the fort was rebuilt in stone in the Antonine period. The Carpow fragment was found during excavations of the east gate in 1964, where presumably it once commemorated the building of the fortress in the Severan period. In neither case is there enough of the inscription to identify the unit explicitly but the presence of the Pegasus and Capricorn emblems, in whole or in part, makes it clear that both fragments are to be attributed to the Second Legion Augusta.

In 1967 the Winchester Excavations Committee was again joined by the University of North Carolina and Duke University in excavations on five sites in the city, while a sixth site was excavated by the Winchester College Archaeological Society. The main season lasted ten weeks from late June to early September and an average of 165 people took part, about £17,500 being spent.

On the 3rd of April 930 King Athelstan was holding court at Lyminster in Sussex. There, in the presence of the two archbishops, ten bishops, as many ealdormen, and twenty thegns, he issued a solemn diploma granting four hides of land to the bishop of Selsey. The text has been preserved only in a fourteenth-century copy, but the formulas are those of Athelstan's reign, and there is no reason to doubt its authenticity.

On the 6th February 1685 King James II of England and VII of Scotland succeeded to the throne of Great Britain on the death of his elder brother, King Charles II. His reign, which was to last for less than four years, was beset by many difficulties. A number of these problems stemmed from the fact that James, before his accession, has gone over to the Church of Rome and made no effort to conceal that fact. One of the results of this spiritual allegiance of King James was the provision of Chapels Royal at Whitehall, Windsor, Dublin, and Edinburgh, where James could worship according to the ritual of his Church, and these chapels were duly furnished with suitable altar plate. The altar plate provided for the English and Irish chapels seems to have disappeared but, by a stroke of good fortune, several of the altar vessels made for the Chapel Royal in the Palace of Holyroodhouse have survived. These vessels, which are of superb quality, have up till now escaped the notice of the experts who have dealt with the history of the silversmith's craft in Great Britain. They are now discussed in the following pages: the historical circumstances of their survival will first be described and this will be followed by a technical description of the various surviving pieces.

In 1713 Sir Christopher Wren, then in his 81st year, reported on Westminster Abbey and took the opportunity to enunciate a theory of great importance in regard to the origins of Gothic architecture. Referring to the new church of Henry III he wrote:

This we now call the Gothic manner of architecture … I think it should with more reason be called the Saracen style, for these people wanted neither arts nor learning: and after we in the west lost both, we borrowed again from them, out of their Arabic books, what they with great diligence had translated from the Greeks.… The crusado gave us an idea of this form, after which King Henry built his church.… The Saracen mode of building, seen in the East, soon spread over Europe, and particularly in France, the fashions of which nation we affected to imitate in all ages, even when we were at enmity with it.

The inscribed stone which is the subject of this article was found in the early spring of 1967 in ploughing just inside the defences of the Roman town at Wroxeter (Viroconium), just west of the ‘Eastern Cemetery’ marked on the V.C.H. plan. As the stone is heavy it is unlikely to have been dragged any distance by the plough. It may be suggested that at a late date interments had spread inside the once-inhabited area. The latest levels at Roman Wroxeter have been totally removed or extensively disturbed by persistent ploughing. Dr. G. Webster can cite no artefacts which can be placed in the fifth century, but chance discoveries may help to fill this lacuna. Precise dating cannot be attained, but it seems possible that Cunorix as an Irish foederatus could have settled at Wroxeter in a decade early in the fifth century, though it should be emphasized that the only firm date we have is c. A.D. 460–75 when the stone was set up, as Professor Jackson estimates on linguistic grounds.