Events

The lecture will discuss the award-winning excavations undertaken by Oxford Archaeology on a large Roman villa at Priors Hall, Corby, exploring some of the most significant archaeological remains encountered from Roman Britain in recent years. With components including manufacturing spaces, mausoleum and elements of the villa proper, the lecture will evaluate the evidence for the site’s human dynamics and social and economic networks in its regional landscape.

Clinical scale targeted excavations by the National Trust aimed to date the Cerne Giant by OSL. The research provided an unexpected Saxon date, land-use history and ominous ‘disappearance’ of the Giant for six centuries, provide the platform for reconsideration and new discussion and debate … including some stunning discoveries.

Recent claims of Caesar’s landing on Thanet are best countered by Caesar’s Commentaries. These illustrate that the Delfs, an earthwork re-utilised in medieval times as an aqueduct for Sandwich is his described sea defence. A lost inlet behind Calais may be the long-sought Portus Itius (?Guines rather than Boulogne).

Hear about the Urban borehole surveys and revised chronology which has major implications for our understanding of early urbanism in central Italy.

Sir John Summerson’s famous book Architecture in Britain 1530-1830, first published in 1953, remained the prime textbook well into the 21st century. Steven Brindle, author of a major new survey, Architecture in Britain and Ireland, 1530-1830, discusses his predecessor’s great book, alternative ways of considering the subject, and the thinking which underlies his new and very different study.