It is, at such a time as this, a matter for pride that the Society of Antiquaries, since it is named ‘of London’, is directly associated with the City which has suffered, and steadfastly withstood, the utmost that the malice and skill of our enemy could contrive against it during five and a half years. It is likewise a matter for pride that the Society's arms bear the Cross of the patron Saint of England so that, with complete propriety, and in accordance with our charter, we hold our Anniversary Meeting on St. George's Day. In this annus mirabilis, this year of Victory, we feel profound thankfulness for deliverance from the peril of national death which would have been our fate in defeat, and profound appreciation of the wisdom, steadfastness, and courage with which, under our Prime Minister, our national affairs have been carried on in Cabinet, in Parliament, and in battle by air, sea, and land.

The bronze brooch illustrated from photographs on pl. xi (and here also from drawings by Mr. F. Cottrill), was found a number of years ago by Mr. T. W. Armitage of Trent Lock, Long Eaton, on the high ground known as Red Hill, above the steep right bank of the river Soar just south of its confluence with the Trent in southern Nottinghamshire, between the villages of Thrumpton and Ratcliffe-upon-Soar and on the west side of the main L.M.S. railway line from Leicester to Nottingham, Long Eaton, and Derby. The site is habitually arable land, and Mr. Armitage has collected a number of antiquities from its surface, including besides this brooch several Roman coins and Romano-British bronze brooches along with some amount of mainly Romano-British pottery, to which, in the winter of 1943, he drew the attention of the Society. In subsequent correspondence he readily gave permission for the publication here of this unusual brooch, which he had himself recognized as a Celtic product of the pre-Roman Iron Age; and in lending it to the present writers for the purpose, he allowed it also to be cleaned and examined at Oxford, under Mr. Jacobsthal's direction, by Mr. V. R. Rickard in the laboratory of the Ashmolean Museum. The photographs were taken in the studio of the same museum.

The megalithic cult of southern and western Europe appears to have been largely seaborne. It was spread in western Britain, too, by a people who used the northern sections of the Atlantic route. This paper deals with the distributions of different types of megalith in the Irish Sea basin and in its northward extension. It describes the burial and ceremonial monuments of the lands which front on to a mainly land-locked sea. The routeways of the Irish Sea were used to diffuse the megalithic cult over a long period, and the better favoured coastlands attracted large colonies of megalith builders (see fig. i) comparable in size to those of any section of the Atlantic route. The controlling geographical features such as tidal currents and their influence on routeways; or diffusion in relation to areas of lighter soil, or patches of bare rock, or wind-swept coastlands (i.e. the less densely forested areas); are of vital importance, and will be discussed elsewhere.