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The Society is most grateful to all contributors (of specialist groups, field units, museums, universities, developers and individuals) who have provided reports on groups, finds, excavations, field-surveys and building analyses for 2009. We thank contributors for conforming to the house style; we can advise on content, but are unable to abstract from interim reports. Note that in certain cases the National Grid Reference has been omitted to protect sites; please notify the compilers if this information is to be withheld. For MB&I, see below for the format and content of the Fieldwork Highlights section, and for contact details of the compilers. Note that the Specialist Groups Reports now appear in the Society's Newsletter rather than in the journal. DOI: 10.1179/174581710X12790370816011

THE HOSPITAL of St Mary Magdalen, Partney has seen the first major excavation of a minor rural hospital. Existing by c 1115, it was amongst the earliest hospitals founded in Britain after the Norman Conquest and is one of a class of about 60 sites that were run as cells of larger religious foundations. Excavations uncovered the hospital chapel and its burial ground, as well as timber buildings. Monks/priests and lay people, possibly from the monastic estate, may have been interred in separate locations with different burial rites. Of particular note was a burial in a locked coffin or chest. Partney had ceased to function as a hospital by 1318, when it formed an administrative cell of Bardney Abbey. It was abandoned and robbed in the mid-15th century when the area was given over to agriculture. DOI: 10.1179/174581710X12790370815896

USING AN OSTEOBIOGRAPHICAL approach, this contribution considers the identity of the woman found alongside the St Bees Man, one of the best-preserved archaeological bodies ever discovered. Osteological, isotopic and radiocarbon analyses, combined with the archaeological context of the burial and documented social history, provide the basis for the identification of a late 14th-century heiress whose activities were at the heart of medieval northern English geopolitics. DOI: 10.1179/174581710X12790370815931

AN INCREASE IN reported finds of metal ampullae enables a reappraisal of this distinctive class of pilgrim souvenir in England and Wales, Norfolk in particular: their form, decoration, distribution, context and the physical signs of their production and use. This sheds light on an aspect of late-medieval culture and custom; additionally, it encourages reflection on the kinds of data that metal-detectorists currently record and report. The thesis is that 15th- to mid-16th-century ampullae were associated especially with rural communities and deposited infields as votive objects, often after intentional 'destruction'. DOI: 10.1179/174581710X12790370815850

THE EMPLOYMENT OF an integrated survey methodology consisting of overlaid plotting of metal-detected finds, geophysics, fieldwalking and limited trial excavation to a number of sites across a single region, in this case W Norfolk, England, can provide important further insights into the nature of rural centres labelled as 'productive sites'. The detailed results are first set within a wider research framework by introducing some key points concerning developments in the investigation and interpretation of metal-detected sites in the UK and the early medieval settlement archaeology of Norfolk. In particular, this research can contribute, albeit speculatively, to the wider debates about the diversity, complexity and changing lifestyles of early medieval elite groups involved in trade and exchange in rural areas. DOI: 10.1179/174581710X12790370815733

THE NUMBER OF bracteate finds from early Anglo-Saxon England has increased substantially in recent years. A catalogue draws together for the first time all the finds since 1993 and one, possibly two, dies with bracteate motifs. This leads to a review of their find circumstances, distribution and their stylistic and iconographical links with continental and Scandinavian bracteates. The outcome is a revised picture of the function and meaning of bracteates in Anglo-Saxon society, with the suggestion that the English adopted the idea for these pendants from Sievern in Germany but adapted the concept and iconography for local manufacture. In Kent use links to high-status female burials but outside Kent ritual deposition is also a possibility. DOI: 10.1179/174581710X12790370815698

IN A ZONE of improved upland pasture some 2 km east of the Cistercian monastery of Strata Florida (Ystrad Fflur), Ceredigion, are the earthwork remains of a 'sheepcote' and four abandoned medieval farms, one probably originating as a monastic sheep-handling station. Documentary evidence and field observation suggest that these farms have preserved their late-medieval forms in a relatively unmodified state. Three were apparently situated along a contemporary ffridd boundary (head dyke) that separated a zone of pasture and perhaps arable land from mountain pasture. We cannot establish the relationship between the 'sheepcote' and the 'farms' through field observation alone, nor do we know the absolute age of the ffridd boundary. Our paper describes and briefly discusses the character and local context of the area defined by the latter. The pattern of land-use is comparable to that in Swaledale (North Yorkshire), an area that has been discussed on the one hand in terms of patterns of townships (hamlets) and their land-use zones, and on the other in terms of monastic enterprise and the identification of 'vaccaries'. In the study of 'monastic landscapes', we risk becoming preoccupied with estate economies and the identification of 'tool-kits', at the expense of dealing with the complexity of relationships between monasteries and local communities. Dans une zone de paturages de montagne entretenus, a environ 2 km a l'est du monastere cistercien de Strata Florida (Ystrad Fflur), dans le Ceredigion, se trouvent les vestiges des terrassements d'une bergerie et de quatre fermes medievales abandonnees, dont l'une etait probablement a l'origine des installations monastiques reservees aux moutons. Les sources documentaires et les observations effectuees sur le terrain indiquent que ces fermes ont pour ainsi dire conserve la forme qu'elles avaient a la fin du Moyen Age. Trois de ces fermes etaient apparemment situees le long d'une limite contemporaine de type ffridd (eloture) separant des paturages, et peut-etre des terres arables, de paturages de montagne. Nous ne pouvons determiner le lien qui existait entre la 'bergerie' et les 'fermes' en nous appuyant uniquement sur l'observation du terrain, et nous ne connaissons pas non plus l'age absolu de la limite ffridd. Dans notre article, nous decrivons et evoquons brievement et le caractere et le contexte local de la zone definie par cette derniere. L'occupation des sols est comparable a celle la vallee de Swaledale (Nord du Yorkshire), zone qui a ete etudiee d'une part sur le plan des configurations de l'habitat (hameaux) et de leurs zones d'occupation des sols, et d'autre part, sur le plan de l'entreprise monastique et de l'identification de vacheries. Dans l'etude des paysages monastiques, nous risquons de nous preoccuper excessivement de l'economie des domaines et de l'identification de 'panoplies d'outils', au detriment de l'etude de la complexite des liens existant entre monasteres et communautes locales. In einer Zone besseren, hoher gelegenen Weidelands etwa 2 km ostlich des Zisterzienserklosters von Florida (Ystrad Fflur), Ceredigion, befinden sich die Erdwerkuberreste eines Schafpferchs und vier verlassener mittelalterlicher Bauernhofe, von denen einer ursprunglich wahrscheinlich eine klosterliche Schafstation war. Schriftliche Beweisstucke und Feldbeobachtungen weisen darauf hin, dass diese Hofe ihre spatmittelalterlichen Formen relativ unverandert erhalten haben. Drei befanden sich anscheinend entlang einer damaligen ffridd Grenze (Hauptwall), die eine Weidezone und moglicherweise Ackerland von den Bergweiden trennte. Wir konnen eine Beziehung zwischen dem Schafpferch und den Bauernhofen durch Feldbeobachtungen allein nicht begrunden und kennen auch das genaue Alter der ffridd-Grenze nicht. Unsere Arbeit beschreibt und erortert den Charakter und den ortlichen Kontext der durch letzteres bestimmten Zone. Die Bodennutzungsmuster sind vergleichbar mit denen in Swaledale (Nord-Yorkshire), einem Gebiet, das einerseits in Bezug auf dorfliche Siedlungsmuster (Weiler) und deren Bodennutzungszonen, und andererseits in Bezug auf klosterliche Betriebe und die Identifizierung von 'Vaccaries' (Kuhweiden/-stallen) behandelt wurde. Bei der Untersuchung klosterlicher Landschaften begehen wir das Risiko, uns zu sehr mit Gutswirtschaften und der Identifizierung von Werkzeugausrustung zu beschaftigen und dabei die Komplexitat der Beziehungen zwischen Klostern und einheimischen Siedlungen zu vernachlassigen. In una zona di migliorato pascolo montano a circa 2 km in direzione est dal monastero cistercense di Strata Florida (Ystrad Fflur), nella regione del Ceredigion, si trovano i resti del terrapieno di un 'ovile' e quattro fattorie medievali abbandonati; una di esse fu probabilmente all'origine una stazione di pastorizia monastica. In base alle prove documentarie e all'osservazione topografica si pensa che queste fattorie abbiano conservato la loro forma tardo medievale relativamente senza modifiche. Tre erano apparentemente situate lungo un contemporaneo ffridd di confine (argine) che separava una zona di pascolo e forse di terra arabile dal pascolo montano. Non e possibile stabilire il rapporto tra 'ovili' e 'fattorie' solo attraverso l'osservazione topografica, ne conosciamo l'eta precisa del confine del ffridd. La nostra relazione descrive ed esamina brevemente il carattere e il contesto locale dell'area definita da quest'ultimo. L'andamento dell'utilizzo della terra e paragonabile a quello della valle di Swaledale (Yorkshire del nord), un'area esaminata da una parte relativamente allo schema delle municipalita (hamlets) e le loro zone di uso della terra, e dall'altra relativamente alle imprese monastiche e all'identificazione di pascoli bovini ('vaccaries'). Studiando i 'paesaggi monastici' si corre il rischio di preoccuparsi delle economie del terreno e dell'identificazione degli 'strumenti' a scapito dell'esame del complessi rapporti tra monasteri e comunita locali.

THE HAMMERBEAM ROOF over the great hall of Edinburgh Castle is one of only two high-status roofs surviving on medieval secular buildings in Scotland. In 1999, Historic Scotland recorded the roof structure in advance of cleaning work. Detailed examination of the existing structure and surviving documentation confirms that much of the original timberwork survives, despite later use as a barrack, then as a military hospital, which resulted in many alterations to the structure, including subdivision of its interior. In 1887-92, the building underwent an extensive restoration by the Edinburgh architect Hippolyte Blanc. Its dating has been a matter of dispute among architectural historians, particularly with reference to its stone corbels. Our dendrochronological analysis indicates a construction date of 1509/10: the roof of the great hall of Edinburgh Castle is, therefore, a rare example in Scotland of major timberwork from the reign of James IV (1488-1513). Much of the original carved stone corbel work survives, despite restoration and partial replacement by Blanc, and the iconography of these is contemporary with the roof construction. The decoration of the corbels is therefore among the earliest use of Renaissance ornament in Britain. With the splendour of the roof, they are a small part of the repertoire used to present James IV in the magnificence of a contemporary European monarch. La charpente a blochets du Great Hall (grande salle) du chateau d'Edimbourg est l'une des deux seules charpentes de haut rang qui subsistent dans des batiments seculaires ecossais de l'epoque medievale. En 1999, Historic Scotland a fait etablir des releves de la structure en preparation a des travaux de nettoyage. L'examen detaille de la structure en place et de documents qui nous sont parvenus confirme que la charpente d'origine en bois a survecu pour la plupart, en depit de l'utilisation du batiment comme caserne puis comme hopital militaire, qui avait entraine de nombreuses transformations de la structure, y compris la subdivision de l'interieur. En 1887-92, le batiment a fait l'objet de travaux de restauration considerables, menes par l'architecte d'Edimbourg, Hippolyte Blanc. Sa datation a ete contestee par les historiens de l'architecture, surtout pour ce qui concerne ses corbeaux en pierre. Notre analyse dendrochronologique indique que sa construction remonterait a 1509-10: la toiture de la grande salle du chateau d'Edimbourg est donc un rare exemple ecossais de travaux majeurs de charpente remontant au regne de James IV (1488-1513). La plupart des corbeaux sculptes ont survecu, malgre la restauration et le remplacement partiel qu'on doit a Blanc, et leur iconographie est contemporaine de la construction de la charpente. Leur decoration figure donc parmi les tous premiers exemples d'ornements Renaissance en Grande-Bretagne. Avec la splendeur de la charpente, ils constituent une faible partie des moyens employes pour presenter James IV avec la magnificence digne d'un monarque europeen contemporain. Der Dachstuhl mit Stichbalken uber dem Palas der Burg von Edinburgh ist einer der zwei bedeutendsten Dachstuhle, die in nichtkirchlichen, mittelalterlichen Gebauden in Schottland uberlebt haben. 1999 erfasste Historic Scotland im Rahmen der geplanten Sauberungsarbeiten alle Daten des Dachstuhls. Eine detaillierte Untersuchung der existierenden Struktur und bestehende Dokumente bestatigen, dass ein Grossteil des Gebalks uberlebt hat, obwohl der Palas spater zur Kasernierung und danach als Militarkrankenhaus genutzt wurde, was viele Anderungen der Struktur, einschliesslich die Unterteilung seines Inneren, zur Folge hatte. 1887-92 durchging das Gebaude umfangreiche Restaurierungssarbeiten durch den Edinburgher Architekten Hippolyte Blanc. Die Datierung war ein Streitpunkt unter den Architekturhistorikern, vor allem in Bezug auf die Kragsteine. Unsere dendrochronologische Analyse ergibt ein Baudatum von 1509/10 Das Dach des Palas der Edinburgher Burg ist daher ein seltenes Beispiel fur grossflachiges Balkenwerk aus der Zeit James IV (1488-1513) in Schottland. Viele der ursprunglichen Kragtrager haben trotz der Restaurierungsarbeiten und teilweisen Erneuerung durch Blanc uberlebt und die Ikonographie dieser Steine stimmt zeitlich mit dem Bau des Dachstuhls uberein. Die Verzierung der Kragsteine zahlt daher zu den fruhesten Renaissance-Ornamenten in Grossbritannien. Neben der Pracht des Dachstuhls sind sie nur ein kleiner Teil der vielfaltigen Moglichkeiten, James IV. in der Opulenz eines zeitgenossischen europaischen Monarchen darzustellen. Il tetto con travi a sbalzo che copre la Great Hall del Castello di Edimburgo e uno di due soli tetti di status elevato rimasti negli edifici secolari medievali in Scozia. Nel 1999, Historic Scotland registrava la struttura del tetto prima del lavoro di pulizia. Un esame dettagliato della struttura esistente e della documentazione rimasta conferma la presenza di gran parte del legno originario, nonostante la sala fosse successivamente adibita prima a caserma e poi a ospedale militare, con conseguenti numerose modifiche alla struttura, compresa la suddivisione deli'interno. Nel 1887-92, l'edificio subi un approfondito restauro da parte dell'architetto di Edimburgo Hippolyte Blanc. La sua datazione e fonte di controversie tra gli storici dell'architettura, soprattutto con riferimento alle mensole a doppia voluta in pietra. La nostra analisi dendrocronologica indica una data di costruzione del 1509/10: il tetto della Great Hall del Castello di Edimburgo rappresenta, quindi, un raro esempio in Scozia di importante opera in legno del regno di Giacomo IV (1488-1513). Le mensole in pietra sono in gran parte originali, nonostante il restauro e la parziale sostituzione da parte di Blanc, e la loro iconografia e contemporanea alla costruzione del tetto. La decorazione delle mensole pertanto e uno dei primi usi di ornamento rinascimentale in Gran Bretagna. Insieme ano splendido tetto, sono una piccola parte del repertorio utilizzato per presentare Giacomo IV con la magnificenza di un monarca europeo del suo tempo.

WITHIN THE FIELD of medieval rural settlement studies, especially those involving excavation, currently occupied rural settlements (CORS) have to date been largely neglected in favour of the minority of rural settlements which have become deserted or substantially shrunken. This project aims to help redress that balance in favour of the still-inhabited majority. Small-scale 'test pit' excavations within thirteen CORS in eastern England were carried out in 2005 and 2006 as part of an ongoing widening participation and outreach scheme the Higher Education Field Academy--of the Department of Archaeology of the University of Cambridge. The project combines existing methods with new approaches to reveal a considerable quantity of new evidence for the development of medieval rural settlement. Presented results from three of the most investigated settlements identify new foci of occupation, and new ideas about their development are proposed. They also highlight the extent to which undisturbed medieval levels can survive within CORS.

CASTLE STUDIES have been hijacked by followers of the historian Charles Coulson, whose uncompromising stance, little changed since the 1970s when he began his research on licences to crenellate, has always been that castles were only exceptionally built for military reasons and were 'chiefly an expression of status'. Coulson's ideas have gained particular prominence since 1991, following the publication of his well-received paper on Bodiam Castle. Accepted almost universally by the new generation of castellologists, Coulson's conclusions look set to become the new orthodoxy. This paper challenges those conclusions, concentrating on the late-medieval private fortress (where the Coulson thesis is most persuasive) and beginning with the so-called 'Battle for Bodiam'. It argues that while castles of all dates had many other functions including self-promotion, it was defence that remained the first consideration of almost every castle-builder throughout the Middle Ages; also, that it was increasing social mobility, defined as class structural change, that chiefly conditioned the apparent domestication of the castle in its last years. It was neither status nor nostalgia that caused new castles to be built in late-medieval England, but the ruling circumstances of class mobility and public order.

MASONS' MARKS can be found on stone buildings where the stone is taken to a high degree of finish, but the date of the introduction of this practice into England has yet to be established. Buildings from the Anglo-Norman Period display marks, but it is not clear whether the Normans introduced the concept or it was present in the Anglo-Saxon Period. The fabric of buildings from both sides of the Conquest, and from Roman sites, is therefore analysed to determine the date of introduction, drawing comparisons with early 11th-century buildings in Europe. Since the degree of finish of the stonework closely connects to the use of marks, the treatment of stonework in the 11th century and in the earlier Anglo-Saxon Period is considered, and comments made on the organisation of the building and stone-supply industries of the mid-11th century.

ANALYSIS OF COIN FINDS in an area Of NE. England employs and modifies methods developed for Iron-age and Romano-British assemblages alongside quantitative analysis developed specifically for Anglo-Saxon coinages. The results illustrate that observed patterns of coin loss do represent the overall coin loss for the study area, and sites can be confidently compared to each other and the region as a whole. The role and function of coinage apparently changes dramatically over the period from a medium of long-distance trade in the early period to a cash currency by the Viking takeover of York. A review of 'productive sites' suggests that these sites can only be adequately interpreted through analysis of their assemblages against the background of the regional circulation of coinage and artefacts.

A SMALL NUMBER of Pictish symbol stones demonstrate evidence for multiple lives within the Early Historic Period. These stones are reviewed together with their implications for how we view the wider corpus of Pictish stones. The idea that the stones are burial markers is rejected. Instead, it is suggested that they were created in response to, and as a rejection of, Christian missionary activity.

THE IDENTIFICATION of a number of clench-nails and roves in Anglo-Saxon cemeteries suggest the deliberate deposition of boat fragments and tokens in burial. The distribution of this practice, centred on 6th- to early 7th-century Kent, contrasts with that of the more commonly discussed form of boat-burial known particularly from 7th-century East Anglia. In this paper the characteristics of this burial rite are considered from a number of identified examples to provide for a preliminary typology of 'pseudo-boat-burials' and rove- graves. In conclusion, an interpretation is offered to account for their use in early Anglo-Saxon England, and the preferential deposition in Kent.

THIS PAPER investigates the archaeology and history of 'productive' sites, estate centres and towns between A.D. 600 and 1100 in north-western East Anglia. Whilst it concentrates on a specific sub-region (NW. Norfolk), an argument is developed on the nature of the relationship between archaeological assemblages and administrative structures that can be applied more widely for this period. In particular, the nature of 'productive' sites is discussed, and it is suggested that these places were centres of estate administration and tax collection. The later history of 'productive' sites in western Norfolk is then examined, focusing on the effect that the Viking wars and subsequent (short-lived) Danish rule may have had on them. How this background may have affected the decision by Herbert de Losinga (first Bishop of Norwich) to site a prior, port and new town at Lynn is then explored.

A HOARD of Late Saxon ornamental metalwork, comprising two matching sets of four strapends each and four fragments of an openwork silver disc, was discovered in the parish of Upper Poppleton, on the outskirts of York. Particular emphasis is laid on the date, function, manufacture and localisation of the strap-ends, which rank amongst the most accomplished examples yet discovered of this ubiquitous class of Late Saxon ornamental metalwork. On the basis of close stylistic links drawn to other artistic media from the north of the Humber, it is argued that these strap-ends occupy a focal point in the definition of a 9th-century Northumbrian metalworking tradition embodying a regional version of the Trewhiddle style.

POLLEN EVIDENCE has, to date, made little contribution to our understanding of the origins and development of the medieval landscape. Compared to the prehistoric period, relatively few long palaeoenvironmental sequences provide a continuous record for the past two millennia, and those that have been analysed are mostly located in upland locations that lay beyond areas settled during this period. The nine sequences reported here from central Devon and the edges of Exmoor start to redress that imbalance. They suggest substantial clearance of woodland in lowland areas and the upland fringe by the Late Iron Age, and that the incorporation of this region into the Roman world had little impact on patterns of landscape exploitation. In a region that lay beyond the main area of Romanisation, it is not surprising that the 5th century saw little discernible change in management of the landscape. These palaeoenvironmental sequences suggest that around the 7th-8th centuries, however, there was a significant change in the patterns of land-use, which it is suggested relates to the introduction of a regionally distinctive system of agriculture known as 'convertible husbandry'. This may also have been the context for the creation of today's historic landscape of small hamlets and isolated farmsteads set within a near continuous fieldscape, replacing the late prehistoric/ Romano-British/post-Roman landscape of small, enclosed settlements with only very localised evidence for field systems. This transformation appears to be roughly contemporary with, or even earlier than, the creation of nucleated villages in the 'Central Province' of England, suggesting that the 'great replanning' was just one of several regionally distinctive trajectories of landscape change in the later 1St millennium A.D.

A HOUSING development within the former grounds of Perceton House on the outskirts of Irvine led to the discovery of a 12th-century stockaded farmstead without obvious excavated parallels. At that time it is likely that the Perceton lands were run by a steward, resident in the farmstead in the name of an absentee landowner. On a general note it is suggested that this type of site may be common but rarely visible, except as a cropmark, which without excavation may be mistakenly classified as prehistoric. In the early 14th century the land became the principal residence of a member of the Stewart family. The old stockade was removed and a moat excavated, probably around a new manor house. In the late 1400s following a period of absorption in larger estates the site again became a principal residence, to one Ninian Barclay. This resulted in the building of a new mansion, mainly lying to the south of the excavated area. This was demolished in the 1720s, when another new owner constructed the present Perceton House.

IN JANUARY 2001, an archaeological watching brief was carried out during the construction of a sewer pipeline at Adwick-le-Street near Doncaster in South Yorkshire. During excavation of a Romano-British trackway ditch, a plough-truncated grave was identified which produced fragmentary skeletal remains and an assemblage of copper-alloy and iron grave goods typical of a female Scandinavian burial of the Viking Period. The grave goods included a plough-damaged copper-alloy bowl, a non-matching pair of oval 'tortoise' brooches and fragments of an iron knife and a key or latch-lifter. Other objects might previously have been removed by ploughing. The oval brooches are typologically the earliest of the four pairs to have been recovered in England from a grave and the first to be excavated under archaeological conditions. The design and condition of the brooches suggest a date for the burial at the end of the 9th century. Isotope analysis of teeth from the skeleton indicates an origin for the woman in either Norway or possibly north-eastern Scotland. Investigation of the grave goods has provided information on manufacturing techniques and costume. No evidence was recovered to suggest why the woman was buried in this location, although a previous discovery of Roman or post-Roman inhumations and cremations nearby and the results of geophysical survey suggest that the excavated grave might form part of a more widely dispersed group of burials.

THIS paper seeks to draw to the attention of archaeologists, art historians, and others interested in material culture, some hitherto overlooked references to brooches in Old Irish legal texts of the 8th and 9th centuries. Of particular interest in these @fences is the fact that they include Old English and Pictish words for brooches, showing an awareness on the part of the Irish intelligentsia of the elite metalworking of their neighbours in the British Isles. The extent to which this borrowed terminology reflects an appreciation of English and Pictish brooch-types different from the Irish pseudo-penannular of the 8th century is also discussed.

IN the year 2000, a lead canister and a penny of Henry III were recovered during a watching brief on a site in Colchester which is within 13 m of the find spots of two 13th-century coin hoards buried in similar canisters. While the container found in 2000 may have held a third such hoard (later recovered), it may also have been used as a floor safe. The site has connections with the Colchester Jewry, who were probably the principal agents in the handling of money and deposition of hoards on this site. The single penny may be simply a coin lost on a site where money changed hands in large quantities, or (speculatively) the only survival from a recovered hoard.

THE excavation of a cliff-top site on the north coast of Ulster showed that what had been taken for a small 15th- or 16th-century castle had a more complex history. An early phase may have been a late prehistoric or protohistoric promontory fort. This was re-occupied as a base for a small detachment of troops in the late 16th century. Shortly after 1600 it was chosen as the site for a castle by Sir Randall MacDonnell, later Earl of Antrim. It was built to serve as the administrative centre for one of his baronies rather than either a military or a residential place. As such, it shows how, in Gaelic-speaking Ulster and Scotland, medieval structures continued to be built, and how such a castle was perceived as part of the organisation of estates in a purely medieval fashion even at this date.

MEARE, famous for its 'Abbot's Fish House' lay at the centre of Glastonbury Abbey's estates in Somerset. This paper reconstructs the medieval landscape that surrounded it, in particular showing how highly valued wetland resources were. A strongly interdisciplinary approach is used, integrating remarkably rich documentary material with evidence contained within the 'historic landscape': the pattern of fields, roads, settlements and watercourses as represented on the earliest (early 19th-century) cartographic sources and in many cases still in use today. Historic landscape characterization allows a series of distinctive 'landscape character areas' to be identified which reflect the impact that both lordship and community had on the landscape, with a walled manorial complex, adjacent church, planned village, carefully laid out open fields, and areas of reclaimed meadow, surrounded by extensive common pastures and the famous Meare Pool. These wetlands were clearly highly valued, both materially, as demonstrated by a series of acrimonious disputes between Glastonbury and the Dean and Chapter of Wells Cathedral over their respective rights there, and symbolically, as reflected in the inclusion of Meare along with a series of other islands and their associated Christian sites in the special jurisdiction known as the 'Twelve Hides'. Key to the successful utilization of this landscape was the control of water as a resource, including the exploitation of its natural occurrence in Meare Pool, and its manipulation in the form of canals used for navigation, fishing, flood prevention, and powering mills.

A NEW research programme located on the Tarbat peninsula in north-east Scotland offers the first large-scale exposure of a monastery in the land of the Picts. A case is argued that the settlement at Portmahomack was founded in the 6th century, possibly by Columba himself, and by the 8th century had developed into an important political and industrial centre comparable with Iona. Signs of the monastery's former prominence survive in workshops producing liturgical objects, possibly including books, and in the brilliant art of the Tarbat cross-slabs at Portmahomack, Nigg, Shandwick and Hilton of Cadboll. The monastic institution, which had contacts with Northumbria and beyond, seems to have been expunged by the 11th century, probably in the context of political struggles between Scandinavian, Pictish and Scottish interests.

TRR/VSFORMATIONS in the form and layout of castles and palaces have long been loci of study for architectural historians and, more recently, for archaeologists attempting to ascribe meanings to those changes. In tandem with historical studies of court life, such analyses have highlighted the growing complexity of royal palaces from the 12th to the 16th century and the extent to which royal apartments, particularly those of kings, were affected by the development of administrative departments and court ceremonial. This paper, focusing on the apartments of queens consort, which have received less attention, undertakes an examination of these 'facts' and trends by analysing routes through buildings and their decorative treatment. It reveals that queens' apartments were isolated from public buildings and from ceremonial routes through palace complexes. Alongside the paucity of female imagery, particular in halls, such patterns appear to be the architectural manifestation of restricted access to power.

FARNHAM CASTLE, like other castles of the bishops of Winchester, has traditionally been dated to the period of the Anarchy, a tradition that is based upon the documentary evidence and the limited excavation by Dr M. W. Thompson within the area of the castle keep. This view is challenged on the grounds of historiographical problems with the documentary evidence, the archaeological examination of other de Blois castles which suggest construction before his episcopate, and finally because it is chronologically incompatible with the soil mechanics of the motte. (1)

ARCHAEOLOGICAL investigations during underpinning works at 17 Dean's Yard, Westminster (Westminster School) revealed a deep sequence of medieval land-reclamation deposits overlying Middle to Late Saxon alluvium and basal sand and gravel. The site lies within the area of the medieval Abbey precinct and also within a UNESCO-designated World Heritage Site. The foundations of the present building were found to incorporate re-used stonework, possibly derived from earlier monastic buildings associated with Westminster Abbey close by to the north. The site was reclaimed from the peripheral marshy edge of Thorney Island in the High Medieval Period, though dumping to raise the ground level was undertaken as early as the mid-12th century. The discovery of a partial donkey skeleton in an alluvial deposit at the base of the stratigraphic sequence is of national and international significance, being the first Late Saxon example of this species found in the country to date. Documentary sources suggest that the cloister area was heavily damaged by fire in the late 13th century and rebuilt in the 14th under Abbot Litlyngton. 14th-century gothic stone mouldings were found in an early post-medieval demolition deposit.

THE 19th-century Mayer Collection of Anglo-Saxon material in the Liverpool Museum, which includes finds from Kent excavated by Faussett in the 18th century, was re-examined in 1998 by the Manchester Medieval Textiles Project to test the usefulness of investigating such early archaeological collections for vestiges of textiles. Faussett had noted and commented on textile evidence, thus providing records against which the present situation can be assessed. The degree of survival has been governed by the interests and practices of both archaeologists and curators of the periods in which the material was collected and donated. These factors have to be taken into account to balance the work involved in re-examining collections from before the mid-20th century against the amount and quality of the information to be obtained.

REIGATE stone was one of the most important building stones used in London and along the Thames littoral in the Middle Ages but, despite this, its use has been largely ignored by archaeologists. This introductory essay attempts to look at both the geology and documented history of the stone quarries, and at the Battersea and other Thames-side sites from which the stone was distributed.

ROCKINGHAM Forest is the most intensively studied of Northamptonshire's medieval forests. It saw extensive clearance for agriculture in the medieval period but large tracts of woodland survived and these were increasingly intensively managed. Though primarily nucleated, a dispersed component to the settlement pattern did develop in the forest which was not seen in the champion landscapes of the county. The area supported a range of industrial production, in particular an important iron industry, based upon the local ores, and fuelled, at least in the medieval period, by a substantial charcoal industry. Geology was the primary determinant of the distribution of woodland in the Saxon period, but at the local level survival of woodland in the post-Conquest period was influenced by a range of tenurial and other factors, including management for deer and the presence of large scale iron and charcoal production.

A WATCHING brief and limited excavations of the mid- to late 1950s and early 1960s on a medieval pottery production site near Falkirk is reported on. The large assemblage of redware pottery is described and discussed by vessel-form, and a link suggested between the kiln site and the Knights Hospitallers at Torphichen Preceptory based on the decorative style of the pottery. The excavated kilns are also discussed in the context of the Scottish medieval pottery industry.

This article describes the over 300 archaeological sites investigated in Britain and Ireland in 1998. Members of research groups, related conferences, a subject index for the text, and research details are given.

Archaeological work at Tintagel Island in Cornwall, England, has disclosed Mediterranean material from the 5th and 6th centuries. This is the first strong evidence suggesting Tintagel was an early trading center for Mediterranean cultures.

England and Normandy shared a common (although not exclusive) tradition in the design of seigneurial houses between c. 1125 and 1225, typified by the housing of the hall and chambers in separate buildings, both built to an increasingly standardized pattern. The tradition as known in England is briefly defined and a selection of the Norman evidence presented and discussed in the light of it, identifying a common evolution during the 12th century but some differences in detail. It is then suggested that the pattern may have been particular to England and Normandy, and that it originated in an Anglo-Saxon tradition transplanted to Normandy after the Conquest. The Norman impact on domestic building in England is also briefly considered, with particular re, fence to the Continental storeyed house and its best-known manifestation, the residential tower.

Contrary to earlier beliefs, recent metal-detector finds from a number of sites in the Isle of Wight now attest to the continued wealth and economic importance of the island after its conquest by Caedwalla in 686. This is particularly revealed in the area around Carisbrooke, which, it is argued, survived as a major central place throughout the Anglo-Saxon period. The evidence from scattered excavations and finds is brought together, assessed, and set into the wider context of 7th- and 8th-century political and economic developments in the Solent area.

This article evaluates the contributions made to European archaeology by Sonia Petkovic. Sites she investigated, the nature of her unpublished work, and her work with graduate students are discussed.