W Midlands Archaeol 43

Part of the CBA's Defence of Britain project. Documents some of the defensive facilities in the county, including, airports, fuel supplies, the construction of buildings to re-locate government ministries, and a `Meacon' site located on the Clent Hills (designed to jam radio beams, which were guiding Luftwaffe bombers).

Reports on a project which aims to record settlement patterns, settlement forms and the main building materials used in each of the civil parishes within the county. The buildings will be surveyed and photographed, and a short summary of each parish as it is at the beginning of the twenty-first century will be made.

Discusses the history and remains of a colliery in use between the early-eighteenth century and the 1920s.

Summary of the work and achievements of the Portable Antiquities Scheme in the West Midlands during 2000. Reports that the finds liaison officer has attempted to raise awareness of the scheme with both the general public and metal detectorists. The number of metal detectorists recording their finds with the scheme has increased.

Documents some of the archaeological material donated to the museum during the year. Also features a note on some of the archaeological activities organised by the museum.

Excavtion established that the enclosure dates from the Iron Age and is not a Roman marching camp as aerial photography had previously indicated. Over seventy sherds of Iron Age pottery were recovered from the enclosure's ditch, which seemed to have been deliberately backfilled and then sealed by a working surface (possibly for smelting metal).

Reports a survey of the Malvern Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). Aerial photography has been complimented in the Frith Wood area by fieldwalking transepts approximately fifty metres apart and recording any archaeologically significant surface features. Various features have been identified, including woodland boundaries, compartment boundaries, charcoal-burning platforms, field banks and ditches, a series of strip lynchets, a group of building platforms, and a possible round barrow.

Discusses the production of salt at Droitwich, Worcestershire, between the Romano-British period and the seventeenth century. Notes the importance of salt as a commodity, which is reflected the network of routeways being known as saltways. Attempts to recreate the routes taken by some of the saltways in the Droitwich area, based upon charter evidence and early place names.

notes an evaluation, followed by an excavation, at a site which lay within part of the first- to second-century vicus outside the west gate of the Roman fort complex at Rocester, Staffordshire

a watching brief noted a large assemblage of pottery waste sherds and the remains of a nineteenth-century pottery kiln

quantities of Romano-British pottery were collected during the digging of two ponds close to an area of undated cropmarks

reports the recording of a medieval tiled floor in the ground floor lodging of Guy's Tower

5,720 flints were discovered at the site via fieldwalking. The majority appear to be Mesolithic