During the fourth season of excavation at Fishbourne work was spread over an area of about ten acres, most of it being concentrated on three main sites: the west wing of the main building, the eastern half of the north wing, and the southern half of the east wing. In addition, exploratory trenches were dug through the area to the north of the north wing and several trial excavations were made in gardens to the south of the modern main road. Previously, in December 1963 and January 1964, limited excavations had been undertaken in the garden of no. 65 Fishbourne Road, in the area of the greenhouses to the west of the main site, and in other gardens further west.

In their paper on some buckets and cauldrons of the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages published in this journal, our Fellows, Professor Hawkes and Mrs. Brown (then Miss M. A. Smith), stated that they had been unable to obtain information concerning a certain bucket listed by Leeds. In his earlier study Leeds had quoted Armstrong, saying that the bucket (Leeds's no. 14), ‘formerly in the possession of the Rev. W. F. Falkiner, of Killucan, Co. Westmeath, was removed from Ireland and is now in private hands in Scotland’. There is a bronze bucket of the Irish-British type, as defined by Hawkes and Smith, in the Hunterian Museum, University of Glasgow. It was acquired by the museum in 1914 and forms part of the Bishop Collection. A. Henderson Bishop of Thorntonhall, Lanarkshire, was an active collector and several prehistoric artifacts in his collection, including this bucket, are labelled as having come from Ireland. Nothing more is known of its provenance but there is evidence to suggest that it is almost certainly the bucket referred to by Leeds.

Ring-brooches, which probably were a Celtic invention, started as very simple objects. They consisted of an open ring and a pin ending in a loop which could move along the ring. As ornaments they were not very showy, as their only decoration lay in the shape of their terminals, but as dress-fasteners they were no doubt practical. They seem, however, to have had one drawback: when the ring was too thin or made of poor metal the terminals could be wrenched apart and the brooch could be twisted out of shape when roughly handled. That this possibility existed can be concluded from one of its subsequent developments: the penannular brooch was sometimes turned into an annular one.

A small round barrow near Knob's Crook, Woodlands, Dorset, covered three pits, the largest containing a cremation burial accompanied by samian ware dated to C. A.D. 70–85, broken metal and steatite objects, and an unburnt trepanned roundel. A section was cut through the bank and ditch around one of the supposedly Roman barrows at Badbury Rings, Dorset (Appendix I), in re-examining the evidence for Roman barrows in Wessex (Appendix II). For comparison, details of three of the most recently excavated Roman barrows in England have been summarized (Appendix III).

Between 1919 and 1931 a large amount of medieval pottery, objects of metal, jet, and bone, and coins and jettons were found at Rievaulx Abbey in the course of clearance by H.M. Office of Works (now the Ministry of Public Building and Works). The collection includes two examples of heraldic metalwork and a decorated strip which are sufficiently remarkable to merit detailed publication. The pendant (pl. xxi a) was found in 1922 at the east end of the Church, in the filling of the second from the south of the five chapels in a row against the east wall. The mounting and roundel (pl. xxi b–d) were found in 1924 in the filling on the west side of the Frater, south of the flight of steps leading to the pulpit. The third object, the metal strip with inscription (pl. xxi e), was found in 1925 between the Frater and the Reredorter. No significance can be attached to these findspots, since small objects were found in nearly every part of the abbey. No doubt some were lost during the period of occupation, but the majority seem to have been scattered about by despoilers at the time of the Suppression in 1539.

The fortifications of Berwick-upon-Tweed, begun in 1558, are one of the earliest bastioned systems surviving in Europe. The original design was made by Sir Richard Lee and modified by him during the course of building. The fortifications were left incomplete in 1569; further works were carried on until the eighteenth century.

The Excavation Committee have been aware for some time that building development was likely in the extensive grounds of St. Mary's Abbey. In 1964 the planning authorities granted permission for a limited amount of new building work, and although this was subsequently withdrawn, it brought matters to a head. A major excavation was planned and carried out on the supposed site of the Abbey Church, and thus for the first time since its formation the Committee have undertaken work on an important medieval site. Our grateful thanks are due to Mr. Richard Chester Master for allowing the work to take place and for his keen interest during its progress. The excavations at the Abbey prevented continuation of research excavations at the Amphitheatre, but did not halt the rescue excavations at present habitual in the town, involving the following four sites. A vacant garden in Chester Street, which was scheduled for building, and was excavated by kind permission of Mr. Sutton, yielded information about both fort and town; the site of the old Gaumont Cinema at the corner of London Road and Victoria Road was excavated by kind permission of its present owners, who for the time being wish to remain anonymous, and produced interesting information about late changes in the Roman town-plan; a single trench in the garden behind Lloyds Bank, where excavation was made possible by the kind offices of the Manager, Mr. J. K. Hollinghurst, tested the line of a postulated street; while the garden of Ashcroft House, excavated by kind permission of the Pinnacle Development Company, produced, in a limited area, three mosaic pavements and part of an extensive town house. Excavation on this scale could only be carried out with large resources and the sum of nearly £3,000 was expended,1 while about 150 people gave their services in one capacity or another.