Jewry Wall Museum: A real Roman experience, Leicester
Closed since 2017 for a major refurbishment, Leicester’s Jewry Wall Museum has recently reopened with new interactive displays shedding vivid light on the city’s Roman past. Carly Hilts reports.
CA427
If walls could talk: Reconstructing Roman London’s fashionable frescos
Recent excavations in Southwark have uncovered one of the largest collections of painted Roman wall plaster ever found in London. Carly Hilts spoke to Han Li about ongoing efforts to piece this 2,000-year-old jigsaw puzzle back together.
Riverine reflections: Visiting the natural and cultural heritage of the Rother Valley
The valley of the western Rother is best known to archaeologists as the location of Butser Ancient Farm and Bignor Roman villa, as well as the Weald and Downland Museum and the settlements at Selborne, Liss, Petersfield, Midhurst, and Petworth. Adopting a whole-landscape approach, taking in the entire river catchment, a recent study of the valley shows how natural and cultural heritage are inextricably intertwined, as Chris Catling reports.
CA Letters 427 – September
A High Street highlight Kathryn Morrison’s Chain Stores in the Golden Age of the British High Street, (‘Cathedrals of commerce’, Chris Catling, CA 426) excellently complements books on other types of buildings such as bandstands, the co operative movement, and…
Current Archaeology’s September Listings: exhibitions, events, and heritage from home
There are lots of great ways to get involved with history and archaeology over the next few months, including exhibitions, lectures, and conferences exploring a wide range of subjects. If you would prefer to get your heritage fix from the comfort of your sofa, though, there is a variety of resources on offer online, too, from virtual site tours and digital offerings by museums to podcasts, TV shows, and more. Kathryn Krakowka has put together a selection of some of the options available.
Little End: Tracing the archaeology and social history of a long-vanished community
Excavations at Eaton Socon, near St Neots, have revealed illuminating traces of a rural hamlet and the experiences of its working-class inhabitants over the course of more than a century. Isobel Woolhouse outlines some of the key findings.
Ian Nairn’s Morris Minor
This year marks the 70th anniversary of the publication of a special edition of the prestigious Architectural Review. The June 1955 supplement was devoted to a now-famous single essay called ‘Outrage’, Ian Nairn’s critique of the ways in which Britain’s towns and cities were being rebuilt from the rubble and ruins of the Second World War.
Roman towns and cities: St Albans – Excavating the CA archive
To conclude my mini-series on the towns of Roman Britain, I will head to what may be the most famous Romano-British city of all: Verulamium, modern-day St Albans. With much of the city surviving, unexcavated, beneath modern-day park- and farmland, and upstanding elements visible alongside the award-winning museum that was founded by Tessa Verney Wheeler and Mortimer Wheeler in the 1930s .
Norwich Castle & Art Gallery
Norwich’s imposing Norman keep has reopened after a five-year transformation project, boasting an interior restored to 12th-century finery and an atmospheric new medieval gallery. Carly Hilts reports.
Expanding frontiers: Celebrating the Mothers of Romano-British studies
The early days of Romano-British research are often thought to have been dominated by male excavators, but many female archaeologists also made vital contributions to the discipline, in spite of social and academic barriers that stood in their way. Tatiana Ivleva and Rebecca Jones highlight some of these heroines of heritage.
The Trimontium Experience
The Trimontium Museum in Melrose is using Virtual Reality technology to vividly evoke a Roman assault on a hillfort community. Carly Hilts visited to learn more.
Finds Tray: Ware bowl
Found late last year on the Thames foreshore, this is the base of a small Samian ware bowl with a maker’s stamp. Based on its size, approximately 42.5mm (1.7in) in diameter, it is likely to be one of the smaller…
Science Notes: Tracing the origins of the Bedale Hoard
In CA 426’s exploration of the impact of the Viking Great Army on the north of England, we mentioned research that had shed light on the make-up of a Viking hoard discovered at Bedale, 56km (35 miles) from York. Here,…
Rediscovering Hannah Newton’s house
An excavation led by archaeologists from the National Trust and York Archaeology, with the help of local volunteers, has helped unearth the remains of a house originally built for Hannah Newton (née Ayscough), the mother of Sir Isaac Newton. The…
Rediscovering Welwyn Roman Baths
The Welwyn Roman Baths, preserved under the A1(M) in Hertfordshire, opened to the public 50 years ago this year (CA 27). In the lead-up to this milestone, Dr Kris Lockyear led a team from the Welwyn Archaeological Society (WAS) and…
Rare Anglo-Saxon coin found near Norwich
This past autumn a rare gold shilling – called a thrymsa – was found in a field near Norwich by a metal-detectorist. It represents a completely new type of coin, dated to the 7th century and containing both Christian and…
Discovering the secrets of Gloucester Cathedral
Work has begun on conserving Gloucester Cathedral’s Great Cloister, an intricate and important undertaking as this structure features the earliest surviving fully developed fan vault. The project was undertaken after a trial had found that the cloister was under significant…
World news
‘Venus’ found in Poland The Museum of Polish Arms has conducted new research into a small limestone statuette, which was first discovered in Kołobrzeg in 2022. The team found that the object, which they have dubbed the ‘Venus of Kołobrzeg’,…
DNA reveals details of Anglo-Saxon diversity
Newly published research has added more evidence to our growing understanding of kinship and migration in Anglo-Saxon England, revealing that two 7th-century individuals, buried over 250km (153 miles) apart, each had a grandparent with West African ancestry. One of these…
Revealing Rathgurreen Ringfort
Recent excavations at Rathgurreen Ringfort, on the Maree Peninsula in County Galway, have revealed new details about the site’s history, indicating that it may have evolved from a late Bronze Age/early Iron Age monument and that, during the early medieval…
UK news in brief
Neolithic long cairn granted protected status The Dudderhouse Hill long cairn, located within the Yorkshire Dales National Park, has been granted protected status as a Scheduled Monument by the Government. The scheduling was recommended by Historic England after a number…
Friends of Highgate Cemetery Trust
Highgate Cemetery, consecrated on 20 May 1839, was created to provide a more hygienic alternative to ‘intramural’ burial (within church walls) or in overcrowded church- and chapel yards. Today, Highgate is known as one of the so-called ‘magnificent seven’ cemeteries…
Surveying Verulamium: St Albans, Hertfordshire
In CA 310, we reported on surveys undertaken by the Community Archaeology Geophysics Group (CAGG) of the Roman city of Verulamium (St Albans, Hertfordshire). At that time, the group, led by Dr Kris Lockyear, had mainly worked in the site’s…
Medieval Warhorse: Equestrian landscapes, material culture, and zooarchaeology in Britain, AD 800-1550
REVIEW BY SUNNY HARRISON The mounted knight remains one of the iconic images of England in the Middle Ages, evoking King Arthur, massed charges, and the very notion of chivalry – all of which would have been impossible without ‘skilfully…
Late Iron Age to Romano-British and Anglo-Saxon Settlement at Barton Seagrave, Northamptonshire
REVIEW BY ANDY CHAPMAN This monograph does everything that it says on the packaging in the quoted book review. It contains, ‘high quality data with extensive and thorough reporting by artefact/ecofact specialists’. Unfortunately, with one outstanding exception, the archaeology itself…
The Watermills and Landscape of the River Great Ouse, Cambridgeshire
REVIEW BY MAGNUS ALEXANDER This is a fascinating landscape history of a medieval ‘watermilling powerhouse’, which demonstrates that over 1,000 years of watermilling has had a huge impact on an apparently natural braided river. Most of the book consists of…
The Trading and Consumption of Roman Glass in Britain 43-500 CE
REVIEW BY RACHEL TYSON This study analyses the glass from 29 sites across Roman Britain to provide us with a picture of its consumption within different socio-economic groups and gain a better understanding of the trade and distribution of glass…
Cotton ‘Henge’ to Craft: Neolithic to Anglo-Saxon remains at Warth Park, Raunds, Northamptonshire
REVIEW BY ADAM SUTTON Thanks to the Raunds Area Project of the 1980s and 1990s, the site discussed in this volume is located in one of central England’s most intensively studied archaeological landscapes. The developer-funded excavations reported on here, carried…
Life in the Viking Great Army: Raiders, traders, and settlers
REVIEW BY COLLEEN BATEY The arrival of the Great Army on the shores of East Anglia in AD 865 was a seminal moment in English history. This marked the move away from the seasonal raids of war bands to the…
Museum news
The latest on acquisitions, exhibitions, and key decisions.