The mosaics of fourth-century Romano-British villas constitute a rich but relatively neglected resource. In this paper, I propose to demonstrate how figured pavements can provide indications of the function of the rooms they decorated.

Hitherto, an approach to the identification of different types of room using mosaics as a prime indicator is one that has not been fully utilised. Major studies of the Roman villa are valuable in their own right but barely touch upon room function. Some important and still-cited articles have concentrated on form rather than function. Other studies have focused upon social aspects of the villa. In recent years comments have been made about how decoration can be used to differentiate space but with little reference to mosaics. As against those studies which hint at the use of mosaics but do not make much of them, Thébert has produced a seminal work addressing function, architecture and decoration, especially mosaics, showing that many illuminating deductions can be made.

This paper explores the development of tile-stamping in the period a.d. 100–50 by the Gloucester and Cirencester civic authorities, and by private tile-makers in Gloucestershire, and the territorial divisions between them. It argues that builders’ merchants were used in tile distribution and building reclamation and, inter alia, identifies Hucclecote villa as such a site. It proposes that Gloucester tiles stamped just RPG were issued annually and were used for commercial purposes while tiles with magistrates’ names were issued as required, but only for use on public buildings. The evidence suggests that these stamps were subsequently extensively curated. This paper adds nearly 200 new stamps to the existing catalogues and proposes significant revisions to the magistrate dies as a result.

This paper describes the hitherto unpublished South Gate of the Roman city at Caistor St Edmund, Norfolk, which was excavated by Donald Atkinson in 1934; it discusses the implications both of the adjacent two kinds of external towers and of his trench through the rampart behind the city's north wall, dug in 1930 but not previously published.

The plan of the Roman villa at East End in the parish of North Leigh (Oxfordshire) has long been familiar from R.G. Collingwood's handbook, The Archaeology of Roman Britain (1930), where it stands as the ‘type’ of the courtyard house (FIG. 1). Our knowledge of this plan is, however, only partial. Neither in the original excavations of 1813–17 by Henry Hakewill, nor in the re-excavation of 1910–11 by Donald Atkinson and H.G. Evelyn White, were the buildings surrounding the main courtyard completely examined. In addition, other buildings on the south-west side were suspected by Hakewill in 1817 and brilliantly demonstrated in air-photographs taken in 1943 by Derrick Riley, while John Ward conjectured a lower courtyard on the south-east side, like those at Bignor and Woodchester.

At about the beginning of July, 1736, a servant to one Mr. Campion, a gentleman Farmer living at a little Village called Coddlestock in the County of Northamptonshire, at a distance of about one mile from Oundle, being at plow in an open field belonging to the said village, and at the edge of that lordship adjoining to Glaphorn Field on a Headland commonly call'd the Guild Acre, discovered in a furrow several little stones which made a very uncommon appearance, and with which having acquainted his Master, he with an intimate Neighbour or two went privately to the place, and caused so much of the earth to be cleared from it, as to give them a view of a small part of a very elegant piece of work, to which they were unable to assign any Name.

It is just over one hundred years since Friedrich Hultsch published the second and enlarged edition of his Metrologie, so that it would seem appropriate, in view of the current discussion on Roman town-planning, to proffer some observations on one of the best-known, yet to some extent little researched, Roman towns in Germany.

Several recent articles in this journal have highlighted the fact that much effort has been expended trying to understand the intricacies of Roman planning, both in the civil and in the military context. They have also reiterated the point that one may not take it for granted that a given metric measurement may be simply divided by (say) o · 296 in order to provide a measurement in terms of so many ‘Roman feet’. The imperial and metric weights and measures are the regulated quantities of a modern era obsessed with standardization; one cannot expect such a rigorous uniformity when dealing with Roman standards in the north-west provinces, often based, as they were, on a wooden measurement-rod. However, when confronted with an excavated building or, on a grander scale, a whole town, it is the task of the excavator to examine whether or not a systematic plan on the part of the Roman architect or surveyor could have existed. More often than not there will have been one. The problem then is to identify not only whether the standard foot or the Drusian foot was used, but also whether differences within the length of these measurements themselves are discernible. Only by accurately documenting a great number of buildings on an equally great number of sites can one hope to make good the limited amount of evidence which the ancient authorities have left us.

In recent years there has been much discussion of the ancient units of measurement used in both civil and military planning in Roman Britain, without great consensus being achieved. Clearly, this is not a subject for dogmatic assertion, but prolonged re-examination of the evidence has convinced the writer that the units of measurement employed in planning the town houses of Silchester and Caerwent were 7 1/2 and 3 3/4 pedes Monetales. It will be argued that the 7 1/2 and 3 3/4 p.M. units (hereafter referred to as units and half-units) were used not only to lay out the houses themselves, but also to calculate their positions within their respective insulae and, indeed, the overall sizes of the insulae themselves. If right, these suggestions clearly have far-reaching implications for the whole subject of Roman urban planning.

The location of the forum at Lincoln has been a matter of dispute among scholars for many years. Since the discovery late last century of the so-called ‘Bailgate colonnade’ (see below, p. 69) various arguments have been put forward both for and against the interpretation of this imposing feature as the frontage of a forum-basilica complex. The evidence consisted of the colonnade itself, the ‘Mint Wall’ running westwards from the northernmost columns and probably forming the northern boundary of the complex and, within the area to the south and west of these, several references to finds of tessellated pavements.

Excavation at Honeyditches has revealed first century A.D. occupation in the Iron Age tradition, followed by Roman buildings. These included two parallel long timber structures, a large free-standing bath-house and a probable barn. These buildings, together with a house partially explored earlier this century, are interpreted as belonging to a villa complex, probably dating from the second to the fourth centuries. Norman pottery and occupation debris found over the bath-house are published in the Proceedings of the Devon Archaeological Society.

RIB 601 is a sandstone altar which was discovered in 1794 in the churchyard at Halton-on-Lune, three miles upstream of Lancaster. The stone, which is broken on its right-hand side, records a dedication made to Mars by a certain Sabinus and the men of a Numerus Barcariorum. It has been generally assumed that this is the same unit as the Numerus Barcariorum Tigrisiensium placed in the Notitia Dignitatum at ARBEIA (South Shields); this reference in the Notitia has been plausibly taken to apply to the late fourth century. This assumption of identity therefore entails postulating an earlier date for the unit's stay at Lancaster. As far as purpose is concerned, the usual assumption is that the function of the barcarii was one of transportation and lighterage. It is the purpose of this note to re-examine both assumptions.

Excavations and fieldwork at Brampton, Norfolk (TG 223237), 1965–1975, have added to knowledge of the Romano-British settlement first recorded in 1667. The settlement lies at an important cross-roads and river-crossing and covers c. 75 acres (30 ha); of this an area of c. 15 acres was enclosed by a defensive ditch, probably in the second century. Industrial activity on the site included large-scale pottery manufacture, and metal-working. Fieldwork and small excavations have been carried out each year since 1965 by a small group of amateur archaeologists under the direction of the author. Excavations by Mr C. J. S. Green for the Norfolk Archaeological Unit in 1974 will be published in a forthcoming report in the series ‘East Anglian Archaeology’. No final report can be published until more large-scale excavations have been carried out, but it is hoped that the following brief account of the site will give an indication of its nature and importance.

A combination of excavation and study of accurately surveyed street systems of some Romano-British towns enables a distinction to be drawn between those with newly planned layouts and those founded on the sites of military fortresses. The aims of this article are to summarise very briefly, mainly by means of plans, the evidence for both types and to demonstrate how planned street-layouts can be detected.