The site is in the parish of Playden, near Rye, Sussex, about 300 yards south-east of Mockbeggar House, and covers the top of a detached knoll which projects from the watershed between the Tillingham valley and the levels of Romney Marsh. The knoll is about 150 ft. above sea-level. No fewer than five springs rise within a short distance of the site (fig. 1).

The subsoil belongs to one of the geological formations of the Wealden series, viz., the Hastings Beds, represented at Mockbeggar by the Wadhurst Clay which contains extensive patches of sand and, in particular, pockets of a very fine white sand. One of these pockets is quite close to the site. It is of special interest that while the soil of the spur is mostly sand there is one protruding patch of hard yellow clay, and it is precisely on this patch that the prehistoric people formed their settlement.

Under the Wadhurst Clay, which here is only a few feet in thickness, there is over a hundred feet or so of sandstone forming the Ashdown Sands, well exposed at Point Hill in the parish.

During the clearance of the moats and wards of these castles in Glamorgan and Monmouthshire, which has been undertaken by H.M. Office of Works in conjunction with the work of consolidating the masonry, a number of finds has been made. Some of these are of more than passing interest, and it has seemed advisable to place on record a complete list of all which in any way illustrate the history of the castles concerned.

Dr. Tancred Borenius has already described and illustrated a number of the medieval enamels in the Pitt-Rivers Museum at Farnham, Dorset, and I have now an opportunity of adding to the published series a crosier-head in the same collection, permission to do so having been very kindly given to me by Captain Pitt-Rivers and Mr. Trelawney Dayrell-Reed, Curator of the Museum. The crosier-head was formerly in the collection of Mr. J. F. Hutton, of Manchester, and was purchased by General Pitt-Rivers in 1890; it was at that time an incongruous and ill-fitting assortment of pieces, consisting of modern metal-work of two kinds, the knop of a fifteenth-century silver-gilt chalice, a fourteenth-century copper-gilt hexagonal collar of the architectural type, and the thirteenth-century enamelled crook illustrated here (pl. lxx, 1 ). As the photograph shows, the crook has now been freed from these later additions, and it can henceforth take its place without encumbrances as the only example in this country of the very beautiful French enamelled crosier-heads that we may call the ‘flowering volute’ type.

Records of the Early Iron Age in the immediate Scunthorpe district are so few and far between that it seems all the more desirable to publish the recent discovery of the following group of bronzes.

The eleven diligent volumes of Don Antonio López Ferreiro's Historia de la Santa Apostolica Metropolitana Iglesia de Santiago de Compostela contain a mass of documents related to the history of the cathedral of Santiago, but, in spite of this wealth of material, the date when the building was begun has never been clearly established. The Historia Compostelana (i, 78) states: ‘Est autem B. Jacobi specialis et praeclara nova Ecclesia incoepta Era I.C.XVI. V Idus Jul.’ (an. 1078), thus giving the date as A.D. 1078. However, in the Codex Calixtinus, a twelfth-century piece of pilgrimage propaganda, containing among other things a description of the cathedral, no less than four different dates are given for the event: ‘Ecclesia autem fuit incepta in Era MCXVI. Ab anno vero quo incepta fuit usque ad letum Adefonsi fortissimi et famosi regis Aragonensis habentur anni LIX, et ad necem Henrici regis Anglorum LXII, et ad mortem Ludovici pinguissimi regis Francorum LXIII, et ab anno quo primus lapis in fundamento eius ponitur usque ad illum quo ultimus mittitur XLIIII anni habentur.’

The general expansion of interest in prehistoric archaeology has in recent years taken effect in Northern Ireland, where many rich fields await intensive exploration. A new phase of activity both among archaeological societies and independent workers has resulted in much promising research work. For the earliest periods held to be represented in the region Mr. C. Blake Whelan is contributing a series of papers to the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy on the results of his researches on Mesolithic questions, and several key sites were investigated in 1934 by the Harvard Archaeological Mission, working under Mr. H. L. Movius.

About 1540 John Leland wrote of the ruins of Old Sarum: ‘Ther was a paroch of the Holy Rode beside in Old-Saresbyri; and an other over the est gate whereof yet some tokens remayne. I do not perceyve that ther wer any mo gates in Old-Saresbyri than 2: one by est, and an other by west. Withoute eche of these gates was a fair suburbe. And in the est suburbe was a paroch chirch of S. John: and ther yet is a chapelle standinge. … Ther hath bene houses in tyme of mind inhabited in the est suburbe of Old-Saresbyri: but now ther is not one house neither within Old-Saresbyri, nor without it, inhabited.’ Since that date much work has been expended on Old Sarum itself, but it may be said with truth that the suburbs have received but scant, if any, attention.

Trial excavations on the site of a new post office on the north side of West Street, Chichester, were conducted by Mr. F. Cottrill in 1934 on behalf of H.M. Office of Works, and a report on these will appear in the Sussex Archaeological Collections. During the subsequent preparation of the ground for the new building, the site has been watched, with the permission of H.M. Office of Works, by Mr. W. Ll. White, to whom I am also indebted for the photographs on pl. lxxii, taken under great difficulties. Thanks are also due to Mr. Smith of H.M. Office of Works, and Messrs. Privett for their zeal in preserving the remains.