Excavations at Drumburgh, 10 miles (16km) from Carlisle, have unearthed a section of Hadrian’s Wall – the best-preserved part of the frontier fortification to be revealed west of the city. At the instigation of the landowners, who wanted to learn…
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…
The remains of a stone tower have been discovered during a recent archaeological dig in Chichester’s Priory Park. They are believed to be the remains of a barbican that would have been used to defend the West Sussex city’s Norman…
Traces of London’s earliest Roman basilica, where officials presided over the settlement’s legal, commercial, and administrative affairs c.2,000 years ago, have been revealed beneath a City office block. Sophie Jackson told Carly Hilts about the discoveries.
REVIEW BY MATTHEW CHAMPION The history of the English parish church has long been of fascination to historians, buildings archaeologists, and the general public. As a result, the number of books on the subject published over the last two centuries…
Peter Wade-Martins has visited all 649 of Norfolk’s surviving medieval churches to study the stone types used in their construction. As a result, he has identified the use of conglomerate – along with grey quartzite, millstone grit, and tile, much of it reused from ruinous Roman buildings – as important indicators of the churches constructed in the 11th and 12th centuries, before the ready availability of limestone. Chris Catling reports.
Excavations in Beaumaris, Anglesey, have uncovered elements of the town’s medieval defences that were thought to have been demolished half a century ago, as well as providing vivid insight into the lives of the people who lived beside them for hundreds of years. Matthew Jones and Catherine Rees report.
Christopher Catling, Contributing Editor for CA, delves into the eccentricities of the heritage world.
REVIEW BY ANTONY LEE This volume, an output of the WallCAP project (2018-2022), directly and successfully addresses historic disconnects between archaeological and geological studies of Hadrian’s Wall. It presents a thoughtful and accessible study into how consideration of the Wall’s…
had King Charles been in need of distraction or amusement during his Coronation in May 2023, he could have done worse than study all the graffiti carved into the woodwork of the Coronation Chair
Orford Castle in Suffolk has reopened to visitors after detailed conservation work – a project 13 years in the making – was completed in January. The castle was originally built for Henry II between 1165 and 1174, as a royal…
The grounds of Craigievar will remain open to visitors whilst the work is being carried out, and a grand reveal of the new exterior is planned for spring 2024.
The remains, which lie along the original course of the Thames riverside, are likely to be at least 700 years old.
When it was completed in 1209, medieval London Bridge was the only fixed crossing of the Thames downstream of Kingston-upon-Thames (until Fulham Bridge was built in 1729). Remarkably, it was also home to some 500 people – equivalent to the population of a small medieval town. In London Bridge and its Houses, Dorian Gerhold has scoured the archives of Bridge House – the medieval charity that managed the bridge – to find out more about the community that lived on this extraordinary structure, as Chris Catling reports.
Built in the early 14th century, the castle is known for its striking 100ft-high gatehouse and one of the best preserved great halls in the country.
The survey work showed that the complex was a ‘courtyard castle’ with corner turrets and a great hall...
The team, from Durham University’s Department of Archaeology, working in partnership with archaeologists and volunteers from The Auckland Project, found the tower’s steps and stone foundations.
The Friends have raised some £15 million towards projects as diverse as the purchase of a minibus for the choristers, the conservation of rare books in the library, the restoration of the splendid Tudor gatehouse, and the creation of a new garden in the cathedral precinct.
A century’s worth of development transformed the site from the earth-and-timber castle that was founded by William the Conqueror into the substantial stone fortress seen here.
The wall will continue to serve as a lasting reminder of the large 3rd- to 4th-century Roman fort of which it was once a part
Built in AD 122, Hadrian’s Wall stretched 73 miles from the North Sea to Solway Firth and marked the furthest limit of the Roman Empire.
Repair work will be carried out on the largest surviving remains of the walls of the castle, which was built on the orders of William the Conqueror between 1067 and 1071.
Dover’s massive castle, rising in tiers above the harbour to the crest of the hill above the town, looks like the very model of a medieval fortification – but, as a new book reveals, it has some very odd features indeed. Current Archaeology's Chris Catling reports on the efforts of English Heritage and Historic England, as well as castle specialists and medieval historians, to explain this extraordinary monument.
‘If untreated, the fireplace could crumble quickly.’
Cuzco was the heart of the vast Inca empire, but all changed in the 16th century when the capital was conquered by Spanish invaders. Michael J Schreffler investigates the Inca city, and how it went from the centre of one empire to the periphery of another.
Many miles of Hadrian’s Wall survive beneath turf and rubble, unexplored and often under threat from erosion, people, and animals. A recent excavation at Walltown Crags in Northumberland, undertaken in advance of fixing some of this damage, revealed sections of…
Churches are what archaeologists call ‘persistent sites’, places used for the same purpose for centuries, even millennia. But that does not mean the churches themselves are static: they represent the accretion of various building interventions of many different kinds and dates. None are richer in art and architecture, though, than those from the period we call ‘Decorated’, as Nigel Saul’s new survey of 14th-century Herefordshire church buildings demonstrates. Current Archaeology's Chris Catling reports.
During the 2019 Pilgrimage of Hadrian’s Wall (see CA 353), participants considered a key question relating to the ancient fortification: did the eponymous emperor who commissioned its construction live to see it completed? David Breeze and Erik Graafstal explore the evidence.
In 1969, fire raged through this exceptional Elizabethan house. Paul Drury explains what archaeologists were able to rescue from the burnt-out husk.
The 1st and 2nd century structures were found in the basement of Cirencester Corn Hall