In the upsurge of interest in the condition of the cities of Britain during the fifth and sixth centuries, and in the causes for their severely reduced circumstances, several facets of the problem are currently undergoing scrutiny in the light of increasing knowledge. One such facet is the part supposedly played by plague and other outbreaks of disease in extinguishing town life in Britain during the fifth century. This has been most fully discussed by Mr J. S. Wacher in the final chapter of his work on Romano-British cities, but the idea is at large, growing, and becoming less and less restrained. In his assessment of the role of epidemic disease in bringing about the collapse of Romano-British urban culture, Wacher argues with some force that it was decisive, comparing its influence with ‘the appalling effects over the whole of Europe of the Black Death in the fourteenth century and of the Great Plague two centuries later’. Many of the literary sources of the fifth and sixth centuries which mention major outbreaks of disease in various parts of the Empire are assembled to compose a picture of which Gildas himself would have approved, a tale of epidemics and progressive weakness which ‘could spell the end of a society which was already disintegrating’. Again, ‘in the disease-ridden world of antiquity, a pestilence which attracted the attention of a contemporary writer would indeed have been serious …In a world where death from disease was commonplace, a reference to a mortalitas rnagna probably meant just that’.

It has generally been accepted that the Romans cultivated the vine in Britain although evidence for this, from either literary or archaeological sources, is limited. Information on crops cultivated in this country in early historical times must largely be obtained from sub-fossil remains, and the recent finding of mineralized grape-seeds from a mid second-century pit in the vicus at Doncaster resulted in a search of the literature for other records. The main purpose of this article is to evaluate these records as evidence for cultivation of the vine in Roman Britain. There are very few instances of this species being recovered from Roman archaeological deposits. The lack of detailed information in the early records not only renders them virtually worthless as proof of local viticulture but also prevents a reappraisal of the evidence in the light of present knowledge. These records have been listed previously in discussions on Roman viticulture but without much thought to the evidence they contain. It is apparent that this is partly due to a reliance on sources other than the original records, which is also suggested by errors noted in the quoting of these records.

Among the finds in the site museum at Corbridge are two related silvered ZA bronze mirrors. Although there are no details about the precise find spot, they can be paralleled by a number of mirrors found mainly in the region of the Lower Rhine, and by several undecorated examples from excavations in England. The first piece is a large fragment of an almost plain disc (PL. XVIII A), slightly convex on its reflecting side and with a narrow slightly convex border on the under side, marked off from the body of the mirror by a single engraved line 0·8 cm from the edge. The fragment measures 7·6 by 6·0 cm; the original diameter would have been about 9·8 cm.

The earthwork at Garden Hill, Hartjield, East Sussex, until then unrecognised, was identified in 1968 by Mr C. F. Tebbutt, who found early Romano-British material in a trial excavation. Five seasons of excavation (1972–76) by the Garden Hill Excavation Group have established the broad outline of the site's history. A scatter of worked flints indicates slight occupation in the Neolithic/Bronze Age period. Attributed to the late pre-Roman Iron Age are a round house and part of what may be another. A hill-fort, with stonerevetted and palisaded defences, was built, possibly against the Roman invasion, but soon fell into disuse and was followed by Romano-British occupation. This included a rectangular timber building, roasting- and smeltingfurnaces and a forging-hearth of the first century; a rectangular building with two verandahs, using timber uprights set on padstones and in post-holes, and a four-post structure on the same alignment, both probably first-century; a timber building set on a stone platform and attached stone bath-building, of the second century; and undated post-hole and timber-slot systems (not fully excavated) representing fences and other timber structures. It is possible that Garden Hill was the base from which local iron-smelting sites were operated in the first and second centuries.