As I walked down Piccadilly one Thursday afternoon not long ago, I saw a notice outside our parish church announcing that a famous musician was to address a lunch-time audience on the subject of ‘The Virtues of Silence’. Rather ruefully I reflected that such virtues are not permitted to Presidents at Anniversary time; and so my fancy lightly turned to thoughts of the Address to be delivered to you today. For all that silence may be golden, none the less speech is silvern, and how better may I preface my remarks on this particular occasion than with the expression of a heartfelt salute to the Silver Jubilee of our Royal Patron, Her Most Sacred Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second? We who are, as it were, second generation Elizabethan antiquaries shall be sharing in the national jollifications and observing them in our own traditional fashion later this evening; and I shall then take the opportunity of reading to the assembled company the text of the Loyal Address which the Society will be transmitting to Her Majesty. Only a fortnight ago, and within but a few days of Her Majesty's return from Australia and New Zealand, it was my privilege to be amongst those gathered to witness the Queen distribute the Royal Maundy in Westminster Abbey, surely as moving a testimony to the continuity of our institutions, and to our Sovereign Patron's personal devotion to them, as any antiquary could wish; indeed to one of those present it recalled a far, far earlier ceremonial connected with queens and the abbey, recorded in a chance reference of 1246 to Henry III requesting the chaplains of London to celebrate, and I quote, ‘the anniversary of the three queens buried at Westminster’, that is to say Sebert's Queen Ethelgotha (d. 615), Edward the Confessor's Queen Edith, and Henry I's Queen Matilda (d. 1118): a piece of ‘mere antiquarianism’ perhaps, but one surely not unbefitting our own anniversary.

This paper describes the survey of sarsen stones (grey-wether sandstones) in the Wessex counties of Dorset, Hampshire, and Wiltshire. This was conducted as a pilot exercise in the resolution of basic landscape problems through fresh investigation on the ground by a relatively large number of people in a restricted time. It sought to settle the following questions: how extensive was the surface sprawl of sarsen boulders and how, from Neolithic times, were sarsens dealt with either as an impediment or as a mineral resource? A small test excavation to see whether and how superincumbent sarsens affected the bedrock is briefly described. The massive collection of data is now kept as an archive in the Society's library at Burlington House and Xerox copies of summary lists based on this archive are available on request from the Assistant Secretary.

A leaden anchor-stock found off Porth Felen at the tip of the Llŷn peninsula in 1974 is described. So far unique in British waters, the stock is of a Mediterranean pattern obsolete by the time of the Roman conquest of Wales. From its decoration it may be assigned to the late second century B.C., or possibly a little later. The typology of ancient anchors is considered, and the reasons which may have brought a small Mediterranean craft to that spot are reviewed. The stock is now in the National Museum of Wales.

A multiple round barrow with three ditches and a double circle of stakes. The first phase was a bowl barrow with a buried inner ditch and a Beaker primary accompanied by a fine group of grave goods; the second phase was a ditchless refurbishing with a stake revetted mound for a cremation; the third phase was a bell barrow with an outer bank for an unaccompanied inhumation. There were at least twenty-two inhumations and one cremation interred over a time span of the order of 350 years.

The Department of Urban Archaeology, City of London, was set up in December 1973 as part of Guildhall Museum, now the Museum of London. Since then it has excavated sixteen sites and carried out numerous watching briefs. Most of the formal excavations have been conducted on the vital waterfront sites, made available for the first time, and on the Roman and medieval defences of the City. Important evidence of the elusive Saxon occupation is gradually coming to light, and the work is accompanied by specialist research, particularly finds, environmental and documentary.

At the end of the third season of work by the British team participating in the UNESCO Save Carthage project, a summary is given of present knowledge of the occupation sequence on the Ilôt de l'Amirauté from c. 400 B.C. to A.D. 700. New information or reinterpretation since 1975 covers the relationship between the Punic and Roman planning of the island and the nature of its possible Augustan, Severan, and Justinianic rebuildings. The structures which have been excavated since 1974 between two Roman streets on the north side of the circular harbour are interpreted as a series of shops or small commercial premises of Roman and Byzantine date. Here, as on the island, a large-scale redevelopment of early Byzantine date is indicated. On the Avenue Habib Bourguiba the city wall now has archaeological dating consistent with the historical evidence that it was constructed c.A.D. 425 and it appears to be associated with a major defensive ditch. Burials were made between the wall and possible ditch shortly after, and perhaps during, the wall's construction. There is also archaeological confirmation of the historical evidence for the neglect of the defences under the Vandal occupation and for their repair following Belisarius' capture of Carthage in 533. By the end of the sixth century the defences were again being neglected and in the early seventh century there was a building on the site of the presumed Belisarian ditch. There is a suggestion of further defensive activity at the time of the Arab invasion. Within the wall, the sequence has been taken back to the destruction of a Roman building in the fifth century and a summary is made of the sequence for the whole site from the early fifth to the late seventh or early eighth century A.D. Field-work has now finished on this site while a further two seasons are anticipated on the two harbour sites.

Recent field-work has established the existence of two amphora kilns to add to the meagre list for Italy, at Mondragone and Albinia, north of Naples and Rome respectively. Their output of types Dressel 1A and 1B indicates that Mondragone was operating from the late second century to the second half of the first century B.C., and Albinia slightly later, since Dressel 2–4 are also present. In both cases, bricks and some coarse pottery were also being fired.

Further work was undertaken in the nave of the ruined church at Stone-by-Faversham in 1971–2 as part of the programme of its consolidation as an Ancient Monument by the Department of the Environment. Evidence was found for a pre-Conquest stone nave, itself possibly preceded by a timber nave; the stone nave was extended westwards in the twelfth or thirteenth century. West of the pre-Conquest nave there were traces of a Roman building distinct from the Roman mausoleum incorporated in the chancel of the church. The dating evidence of Roman and Saxon coins and pottery is discussed.

The discovery of a large number of sheep bones at Baynard's Castle prompted a re-examination of the evidence for the appearance of the late medieval sheep. Previous studies have been based on a miscellaneous collection of depictions from various countries and media without attempting to distinguish which of them were copied from older pattern books. The sheep placed at the feet of woolmen on their brasses could not have been derived from existing patterns and their reliability as evidence for the appearance of the contemporary sheep was confirmed by comparing them with surviving bones. The present state of the evidence suggests that there were no marked regional variations in the sheep at this period; however, much more material needs to be examined but the methods used for this survey could be applied to other species.

Pieces of six limestone moulds for the casting of pewter vessels, found on the Forum site at Silchester, are described and illustrated. Five were for casting three types of dish or plate. Two were moulded on both sides to form part of nests of moulds. The sixth piece was the inner mould for a cup or flagon. The techniques of manufacture are considered. The grooves for casting the rims and feet appear to be compass-drawn, but it is argued that there is no evidence that the moulds were lathe-turned.

Structural and stylistic analysis of the earliest remains of St. Andrews cathedral reveal the following building-sequence: east and south presbytery walls: north presbytery wall: choir-aisle walls: choir piers, south transept west wall, and nave south wall: presbytery clerestory. Documentary evidence implies work began in 1162 and proceeded without major interruptions until 1178 at least. The date and style of those architectural details attributable to the initial constructional phases imply the existence of a hitherto unrecognized phase in the transitional architecture of northern Britain which antedates the Byland group of designs. The influence of St. Andrews on the abbeys of Arbroath and Jedburgh, and the priories of Hexham and Tynemouth emphasizes the seminal importance of its design, which is in part due to its historical position as the national shrine and mother church of the Scottish kingdom.

The roofs over both aisles of the thirteenth-century cathedral at Trogir in Jugoslavia are covered in incised full-scale architectural drawings. These can be related to a number of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century additions to the cathedral: above all, the sacristy (1453–5), the baptistry by Andrea Alessi (1467), the Chapel of St. John by Andrea Alessi and Nicolò Fiorentino (1468–88), and the final storey and spire of the tower by Trifun Bokanit (1598–1610). There are drawings of three different kinds: some are early projects, some for working out at full scale problems of adapting decoration to fit an awkward space, and some to help produce templates for cutting the stone blocks.