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.

When I addressed you at the Anniversary Meeting a year ago I mentioned several matters of policy which your Council had been considering, and on which I said that I hoped to have more to tell you in a year's time. The factual record of progress in these matters is mostly contained in the Report of Council and in the Treasurer's statement on the year's accounts which you have already received this afternoon. But I would like to go into a few of them in rather more detail now, partly because you are entitled to have a fuller explanation of their significance than can be given in this way, and partly because this Address, when printed in the Journal, is the most convenient vehicle for conveying such matters to the attention of Fellows who for one reason or another are unable to be present in person at the Anniversary Meeting.

The Research Committee of the Society of Antiquaries of London has set up a sub-committee to encourage co-ordinated research aimed at deciphering the organization of the landscape from the earliest times to the recent past. After a detailed consideration of the evidence, it decided to concentrate its attention, in the first instance, on the chalk lands of central southern England, where the spread of detectable remains is denser and more widespread than anywhere else in the country, and where the archaeological material in the form of artefacts and faunal remains is best preserved in the greatest quantity.

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.

The churches of Great Britain might be regarded as monuments which have been so closely studied by antiquaries for well over a century that they could scarcely be expected to be a fruitful subject for new intensive investigation. But in fact the true story is quite different; the antiquarian interest of the past was largely concentrated on architectural history and while much of that field has indeed been well explored there are many other fields that have scarcely been touched. In January 1972, the Council for British Archaeology set up a Committee to co-ordinate and encourage archaeological research on places of worship in Great Britain, and in particular to develop a research policy which would include both pure research and also the recording of all archaeological evidence that might be endangered when places of worship and their sites are threatened with alteration whether in normal circumstances or because of change of use.

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.

The Holcombe mirror was found buried in a pit in a late Iron Age settlement, and beneath a Romano-British villa occupied from the late first until nearly the end of the fourth century A.D. A study of the design and motifs indicates that it was produced by a western school of metal-smiths active in the first half of the first century A.D.

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.

The method of manufacture and application of plaques is discussed, also the use and length of life of moulds, in modern ceramic factories; together with the results of experiments in laboratories on the colour and content of clay slips. In Parts I and II respectively are described and illustrated thirty plaques and twelve moulded beakers.

The (lost) Oundle Form 64 by LIBERTVS in red samian is discussed; and there are further comments on the black ‘cup’ from Colchester mentioned in the 1957 paper.

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.

A survey of the structural and contemporary literary evidence for the position of the altar in Anglo-Saxon churches before the Viking invasions of the ninth century indicates that it was not at the east end of the church but in a more central position. This was sometimes near the east end of the nave and sometimes in the eastern compartment. As an indication of how this practice may have arisen in England, references are given to evidence for similar treatment of the altar in Continental and North African churches at somewhat earlier dates.

The evidence of inventories and port-books shows that chafing-dishes were widely used and traded between the fifteenth and the eighteenth centuries, the types ranging from vessels of precious metals to everyday objects of pottery, which presumably imitated the metallic forms. This paper, which is not claimed to be exhaustive, defines seven types of ‘latten’ vessels current during the period, attempting to date them and assign them to areas of manufacture. The attempt to date them met with limited success in only four of the types, the others being interpolated into the resulting scheme on typological grounds. Four of the types were thought to be of continental manufacture, but it was suggested that two might be English.