Grave matters I enjoyed Chris Catling’s report on the work of Brent Elliott and Roger Bowdler on the British cemetery (CA 439). There is a further dimension to cemeteries not considered in that article, though: their value to the student of…
Defending the Demetae I enjoyed the fascinating feature on the wonderful Halberton Roman villa in CA 438. By a happy coincidence, the day before, I had visited Carmarthenshire Museum, which has recently renovated its galleries, including the Roman display for…
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Milestone Ground at midsummer The description of 59 pits forming a long, neat line at the Milestone Ground, Worcestershire (CA 435) is intriguing, especially as such features found elsewhere in prehistoric Britain remain enigmatic. I suggest a clue is the…
Archaeology has been ‘solved’! (or, how we shed some light on dark earth…) It was great to see Cotswold Archaeology’s research into the function of burnt mounds included in ‘Sherds’ (CA 435). Chris Catling suggested that we should now turn…
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Preserving trig points There are various ways of protecting trig points (‘Sherds’, CA 436). This example (below) sits within the Iron Age hillfort known as Castle Hill, close to the Roman fort of Bar Hill on the Antonine Wall in…
Temperance traditions The interesting article about the Temperance movement (CA 434) reminded me of the Cornwall temperance connection at the Padstow ’Obby ’Oss festival, which takes places every May Day. The original Oss has always emerged from the Golden Lion…
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Medical memories The article on Temperance (CA 434) was very interesting, but one important establishment was missed: the National Temperance Hospital on Hampstead Road, purpose-built in the late 19th century. When I was nursing there in the early 1970s, we…
Today’s trash is tomorrow’s treasure? I read with interest the concerns reported on in ‘Sherds’ (CA 431) about the proposed construction of a windfarm in Brontë country, and its potential impact on wildlife and heritage. However, I had to smile…
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Pleased about potin coins I was so amused when I saw the ‘pastry potin’ coins on the ‘Letters’ page in CA 432. I remember David Holman some years ago showing a group of members of the Isle of Thanet Archaeological…
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Saving literary homes and cooling towers Chris Catling’s piece about threats to literary homes (CA 431) is nothing new to those of us in Derby. In 1906, we lost the birthplace of Joseph Wright ARA (1734-1797) – replaced by a…
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Memories of Gallowgate Reading your news article ‘Evidence of Glasgow’s medieval expansion uncovered at Gallowgate’ (CA 429) reminded me of previous work carried out in the area as part of the Youth Opportunities Scheme in the late 1970s and early…
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Football fact-checking It was good to see some football archaeology being reported in CA 429 (‘Cathkin Park commemorated’). However, the article is misleading when it says that after Queen’s Park moved in 1903 ‘the stadium became disused’. Founder member of…
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Castles, conservation, and conquest With a week in Norfolk booked and a visit to Norwich in mind, not least to collect a fridge magnet from the Castle for a grandson, it was serendipity when CA 427 arrived with a review…
Roman Morris Having just received the latest issue of Current Archaeology, I placed it on our recently purchased tablecloth, the pattern of which is based on the ‘Blackthorn’ design by William Morris. As can be seen in the photo (above),…
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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…
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Counting Quaker Meeting Houses I enjoyed the article on the Quaker Meeting Houses in CA 422. I have searched for the Meeting Houses associated with 250 years of my Quaker ancestors, via train, bus, and foot, and found seven extant,…
Smelly memories Please thank Chris Catling for his smelly article in CWA 129; smells and memories, it works both ways. I was reminded of a forgotten memory. Back in the late ’60s/ early ’70s, I visited Madame Tussauds (pictured): the…
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Finding lost farmsteads I was intrigued by the article on South Yorkshire (‘Fields and farmsteads’, CA 424) and the reference to the absence of evidence of farming and occupation of the area between the late 10th century and the 16th/17th centuries…
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Correction: A 64m-Long Roman Building in Sussex? Well, not quite! I’m afraid the structure mentioned on p.22 of CA 423 in ‘A Roman landscape revealed’ suffered from the curse of metric measurements, i.e. the missing decimal point. It should have…
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World’s oldest waterworks? Chris Catling, in his excellent piece on those temples of engineering, the waterworks (CA 421), refers to a Boulton and Watt beam engine at Kew dated 1820 as being the oldest working beam engine in the world.…
A delectable drink from Derby Derby’s profusion of malthouses (CA 420) included an early 18th-century example which had the distinction of being converted, in 1773 (by the architect Joseph Pickford for the Irish impresario James Whiteley), into Derby’s Theatre Royal,…
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Shining a light on Reedham I was delighted to read Mike Fulford’s article on Reedham (CA 420). In 2021, as part of a Diploma in Archaeology at Oxford University Department of Continuing Education, I wrote a long essay about the Roman…