Vespasian's victory over Vitellius in the closing days of A.D. 69 enthroned a new emperor and initiated a new ruling dynasty; it also brought with it an opportunity — or rather, an obligation — to set in train a programme of recovery after the ‘aberration’ of Nero's later years and of the civil war which followed them. In the aftermath of Boudica's rebellion, this was as relevant to Britain as it was elsewhere in the Empire. The degree of Vespasian's perceived success is apparent in the positive and striking accolade accorded to him by Cornelius Tacitus.

Mosaics represent one of the best known art forms in the Roman world. Their geometric patterns and designs, their figurative images, and their development through time have been extensively studied, and corpora have been assembled for certain provinces of the Empire. In Britain, the study of the surviving mosaics has led to the identification of certain late Roman ‘schools’ (stylistic groupings) of mosaics on the basis of shared stylistic attributes. Now it will be possible to place this work in a fuller context as the long-awaited corpus of all Roman mosaics known from Britain begins to appear. However, whereas the late mosaics undoubtedly show considerable regional distinctness, the position of the earliest work that pioneered the form in Britain is far less clear, perhaps because mosaics of the first and early second century A.D. are fewer and have excited much less interest.

Before the transmission of the first ‘live’ Time Team television programme on 23 August 1997, the existence of a Roman villa near Chalkhill Barn in the parish of Turkdean, 12 miles north-east of Cirencester and 2 miles from the Fosse Way, was hardly known to the archaeological community (FIG. 1). That a Roman building did exist in this location had, however, been suspected for a number of years by the landowner, the late Mr Wilf Mustoe. Distinctive linear parchmarks suggestive of buildings had been clearly visible at ground level in the grass pasture each dry summer, and in 1976 Mr Mustoe made a measured sketch plan of them on the back of an envelope. Subsequently the sketch was drawn up into a scale plan entitled ‘Roman villa’ by Simon Goddard, a relation. There was little knowledge of the site outside of Mr Mustoe's family until it was independently ‘discovered’ by local archaeologist Roger Box in August 1996 whilst fortuitously flying over the site in a helicopter. In the evening light Mr Box instantly recognised the parchmarks of an unmistakable Roman villa and took a series of photographs (FIG. 2). Mr Box showed his photographs to Mr Mustoe, and with his agreement wrote to Time Team suggesting that this would be an excellent site for a television programme. Arrangements were duly set in place and the evidence of the cropmarks was confirmed by a trial geophysical survey in March 1997.

The plan of the Roman villa at East End in the parish of North Leigh (Oxfordshire) has long been familiar from R.G. Collingwood's handbook, The Archaeology of Roman Britain (1930), where it stands as the ‘type’ of the courtyard house (FIG. 1). Our knowledge of this plan is, however, only partial. Neither in the original excavations of 1813–17 by Henry Hakewill, nor in the re-excavation of 1910–11 by Donald Atkinson and H.G. Evelyn White, were the buildings surrounding the main courtyard completely examined. In addition, other buildings on the south-west side were suspected by Hakewill in 1817 and brilliantly demonstrated in air-photographs taken in 1943 by Derrick Riley, while John Ward conjectured a lower courtyard on the south-east side, like those at Bignor and Woodchester.

The presence of a Roman fort beneath the Norman motte-and-bailey castle, itself under modern farm buildings at Colwyn Castle (Fforest Farm), Hundred House (SO 1075 5396), was first suggested by C.J. Spurgeon in 1974, and was confirmed the following year by excavation in the south-western bailey and again in 1982 by further observations, when 54 stanchion-holes were dug by machine for the uprights of a large new sheep-shed. The 1975 excavations examined deposits immediately to the rear of the north-west rampart (FIG. 1). Fragments of Roman pottery were associated with the primary deposits which overlay the gravelly clay subsoil.

This paper provides an interim report on sixteen complete barrack plans obtained in the last fifteen years in excavations at the British northern frontier forts of South Shields and Wallsend (complemented by a pair of barracks partially excavated at Vindolanda in 1980 which have already been published). Its purpose is to disseminate more generally the fact that this newly obtained information changes our understanding of several aspects of the construction, function, and historical evolution of auxiliary barracks. It also tells us something more than we knew before about changes in the army as the institution that used the barracks, and of the life of the military communities that inhabited them. In some cases the buildings described here have already been fully published, or publication is imminent; in others, interim plans have been made available in disparate publications but it is likely to be a number of years before complete detailed excavation reports are issued.

A geophysical survey of the fort at Birdoswald, together with an area 80 m to the east and 120 m to the west of the fort walls, undertaken by the authors in 1997, was published in this journal. A detailed account of the findings is set out there, and it is not proposed to go into further detail. A further survey was undertaken in 1998, which encompassed the remainder of the vicus together with the cemetery to the south-west, with the benefit of a grant from English Heritage. More buildings were recognised below the escarpment to the south of the fort during the work on site, and two areas were surveyed in spring 2000 with the aid of a grant from the Roman Research Trust. The findings of these two latest surveys are set out in this paper, and some of the earlier findings have been reassessed. The completed survey has revealed the extent and form of the settlement, and it is probable that more is known of this fort than any other on the northern frontier.

At the beginning of July 1775 a Roman bath-house was accidentally discovered on the northwestern slope of Golden Hill, Duntocher (FIGS 1–2), and its remains investigated. Site-drawings were made and some finds sent for identification to the Society of Antiquaries of London. Though, an account of the work was published by Richard Gough in his 1789 edition of Camden's Britannia, the excavation has been largely forgotten. The present assessment draws upon Gough's and other contemporary accounts, and upon unpublished material, especially the voluminous correspondence between Richard Gough and the Edinburgh bibliophile George Paton, now held by the National Library of Scotland, the Minute Books of the Society of Antiquaries of London, and the Gough Papers preserved in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. Also presented here will be an account of the chance rediscovery of the bath-house in 1978, and a geophysical survey undertaken, at the author's request, by the Department of Archaeology, University of Glasgow, in 2001.