I do not believe that anyone gives up the illustrious office of President of the Society of Antiquaries without emotion; I was your first woman President, and I certainly do not. I want to thank you all—Officers, Councillors, Fellows, and staff—for the steady and unwavering kindness and indulgence that you have shown me during my tenure of office.

In 1946 excavations were undertaken at Breedon-on-the-Hill by Dr. K. M. Kenyon, F.S.A., in advance of quarrying operations. Since then further areas of the hill-fort have been destroyed, the rate of quarrying increasing yearly. So in 1957 excavations were again planned by the Ancient Monuments Branch of the Ministry of Works, and lasted nearly three weeks. Another section was cut through the east defences, about 100 feet north of Dr. Kenyon's Cut A, this time to include the ditch, which up till then had not been examined. No time could be allowed for any excavation within the fort.

The amulet here described was found in April 1963 by Mr. A. G. Rook on a Romano-British site at Dicket Mead, Lockleys, Welwyn. He has kindly provided an interim description of the site and its associated finds and a discussion of the material from which the amulet was made. The object has now been placed on loan in the Verulamium Museum.

The work of Petrecvs has been discussed by Déchelette and Oswald, both of whom ascribed it to the early Central Gaulish workshops at Lezoux.

A bowl at Guildhall Museum, stamped by this potter and seen by Stanfield (fig. 2), clearly the work of a South Gaulish artist, came to the notice of Oswald too late for publication. However, his manuscript notes, on the basis of Stanfield's rubbings, leave no doubt that he realized that the vase recorded by Déchelette from Lezoux was not made at that site. L'Abbé Cérès noted the stamp PETR from La Graufesenque.

The bowl of samian ware, which is discussed here (fig. 2), was found in 1906 at the Recreation Ground, Canterbury, and is preserved in the collections of the Royal Museum, Canterbury. Originally in fragmentary condition, it has been completely restored, except for one or two small pieces.

Of Form 37, it bears the retrograde signature BIILSAM in a small label (fig. 1). The glaze and relief are in fairly good condition, but some of the figure-types and borders are badly squashed, probably owing to the worn condition of the mould in which this vessel was made.

The twenty-seven fragments of samian moulds discussed in this paper were originally found by Plicque at Lezoux, and formerly belonged to the Oswald–Plicque collection; they are now preserved in the Birley Collection, at the Department of Archaeology, University of Durham.

The study of deserted medieval settlements has led archaeologists to turn interested eyes on the site of the borough of Torksey. The description of it by William Leland, the Tudor antiquary, together with its known history, seemed to promise that here, as nowhere else in the east Midlands at any rate, it would be possible to study by excavation the character of an urban settlement in the early middle ages. Hence the decision of the Adult Education Department of Nottingham University to start in 1960 a programme of annual excavations as the focal activity of summer schools on medieval archaeology.

One result of the excavations in Winchester in 1961 was the formation in 1962 of the Winchester Excavations Committee. The city is at present passing through a period of intensive rebuilding and development which offers many opportunities for archaeological research. Moreover, the 1961 excavations had directed attention to the problems of Winchester's Saxon minsters and the Dean and Chapter were willing to allow excavation near the cathedral. With these opportunities in view, the committee was formed to undertake excavations, both in advance of building projects, and on sites not so threatened, aimed at studying the development of Winchester as a town from its earliest origins to the establishment of the modern city. The centre of interest is the city itself, not any one period of its past, nor any one part of its remains. But we can hope that this approach will in particular throw light upon the end of the Roman city and on the establishment and development of the Saxon town, problems as vital to our understanding of urban development in this country, as they are difficult to solve. Further, it is essential to this approach that the study and interpretation of the documentary evidence should go hand in hand with archaeological research, for the existence of documentary materials greatly enhances the possibilities of interpretation inherent in the archaeological results, and vice versa.

For a building of such importance and interest, the cathedral of Glasgow has attracted remarkably little attention from archaeologists during the last half century. Many students outside Scotland perhaps do not realize that Glasgow possesses the only cathedral of the Scottish mainland to survive virtually intact from the middle ages, nor that its history is (by Scottish standards) relatively well documented, because of the fortunate survival of a quantity of records ranging from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries. We may hope that the time is not too far distant when a full archaeological and constitutional study of the cathedral may be undertaken. In the meantime there is room for some briefer studies of particular problems. The present article attempts to put together what can be discovered about the immediate predecessor of the present building: i.e. the church of Bishop Jocelin. Most of what has previously been written on this subject is scattered, and now rather inaccessible. It will be useful to present the evidence afresh; and if there is nothing entirely new to be said, students of twelfth-century architecture outside Scotland may still find that the facts are not without interest for them.

The drawing here discussed, hitherto unpublished, is in the Library of the Society of Antiquaries of London. Its description follows: plan, on three sheets, wove paper, no watermarks, joined together and folded into a volume containing a number of the earliest drawings and engravings in the possession of the Society; 6″× 64¼″, with a drawn scale (50 feet to 1 inch); inscribed (in a later hand), ‘A key to be left open from London Bridge to the Temple 40 foot broad’ and ‘Statut. 19 Car. 2d.’, together with dimensions and names of streets, alleys, waterways, wharfs, &c. (see Appendix). The page of the volume to which the drawing is in part affixed is also inscribed (in the same later hand), ‘An Actual Survey Plann or Draught of a Key to be left open from London Bridge to the Temple.’ (pl. LXVIII).