Intensive fieldwork in an area 4½ miles (NS) by 3 miles (EW) based on the village of Chalton, Hants, has led to the discovery of over 120 archaeological sites on this typical stretch of chalk country. Human activity began as early as 7000 B.C. and has been continuous until the present day. Settlements of different periods reflect the ways in which man has adapted himself to the physical environment and has in turn adapted it to his needs.

The 1969–72 excavations have concentrated on two main areas to be affected by the proposed relief road around Cirencester. In insula XII two houses, apparently constructed in the second half of the third century A.D., have been uncovered and planned. A total of twelve mosaics were found in varying states of preservation. Building XII, I was rectangular with a bath suite to the west, whilst the latest phase of XII, 2 resembled the plan of a winged corridor villa. From this building came evidence of iron working. Both buildings continued to be used in the fourth century and there is slight structural evidence suggesting fifth century occupation.

To the west of Cirencester excavation of a late Roman cemetery has produced 268 burials, not all of which were complete, and a small number of associated finds. All but one were inhumations and two were in stone coffins. The skeletons have been studied by Dr. C. Wells and a short report on his work is included. Work has also been carried out on a road leading towards the amphitheatre. To the north of this road was a boundary(?) wall. Other excavated sites are mentioned in this report. Several interesting pieces of Roman sculpture were found.

Two appendices are included which discuss the mosaics and inscriptions found during the period under review.

Excavation near and adjacent to Rivenhall church in 1971–2 revealed a sequence of occupation beginning in the Iron Age. The present church, thought to be a nineteenth-century rebuild, was shown to be largely a late Saxon structure, with medieval additions. It seems to have been preceded by a small wooden church constructed of upright timbers set in wall-trenches. The whole overlies the remains of a large Roman villa. Finds of pagan period and later Saxon pottery suggest continuous occupation from Roman to medieval times.

A study of the surviving remains of the Cistercian abbey church of Dundrennan, Kirkcudbright, reveals that the monks undertook a massive remodelling of the eastern portions in the late twelfth century. It was largely confined to the east walls of the transepts, the transept chapels, and the crossing, and was intended to give greater height and space by the addition of a third storey. The inspiration for the new ideas was evidently derived from Cistercian houses in the north of England such as Kirkstead, Roche and Byland.

A comparative study of three thirteenth-century rolls of arms, the Heralds' Roll, the Dering Roll, and the Camden Roll, shows the extent to which the first was copied in the preparation of the other two. Light is also thrown on the way in which heraldic copyists worked and on the identity and nature of early armorial bearings.