On Christmas Day 886, King Alfred, exasperated by the attacks of the Danes, finally decided to abandon the undefended ‘open’ site of…
When did the typical English village begin? That is, when did the outlying farms join together to become a nucleated village? Professor…
A major Anglo-Saxon cathedral has been revealed – directly under the flagstones of the nave of Canterbury Cathedral. To everyone’s surprise, the…
Norwich was the second largest city in Medieval Britain: why? In recent years a number of major sites covering more than 20…
In the Middle Ages, life was communal, and the basic building structure was the open hall. Even comparatively grand structures, such as…
The medieval castle is one of the great glories of British archaeology. The finest are those in North Wales, the products of…
Before the conquest of Wales by Edward I in 1283, the Welsh Kingdoms were flourishing. Yet archaeologically, little is known of this…
Newark Castle has always been something of a problem. The west front, facing out onto the River Trent, is a magnificent structure,…
The closing years of the independent Scottish kingdom were turbulent times in the Anglo-Scottish borders. When in 1603, King James VI of…
In the 18th and 19th centuries, hundreds of thousands of people crossed the Atlantic to a New World in America. Why? The…