This issue of CA has a watery theme. We start with Graeme Young’s account of excavating burnt mounds in the wetlands of Bamburgh in Northumberland. Are these mounds the waste from large-scale brewing or were the heated stones used to provide steam for a sauna?

Next, Robert Van de Noort tells our Assistant Editor, Carly Hilts, about the construction of a replica Bronze Age boat. Nervous moments preceded the launch, but Morgawr, as she was dubbed, proved to be a sleek and seaworthy vessel.

Boats of a different kind ‚ flat-bottomed punts ‚ were used to carry goods by canal in Roman East Anglia. Deep in the Fens, Chris Evans and his team have excavated a port settlement that probably supplied the Saxon Shore forts with food.

Our cover story, celebrating the 200th anniversary of the seaside leisure pier, coincides with the fire that damaged much of Eastbourne pier on 31 July 2014. Fortunately nobody was hurt, but the fire reminds us that so many piers have suffered a similar fate.

The tragic outbreak of the First World War marked the end of the golden age of pier-building. Emily Glass tells us about the ‘Home Front and Its Legacies’ pilot project, set up to ask how buildings and land were used to support Britain’s war-effort between 1914 and 1918.

All this and more… we review the new detective novel by Francis Pryor, a long-standing friend of this magazine ‚ and it’s a winner! Could Francis be the next Agatha Christie?