S Staffordshire Archaeol Hist Soc Trans 32

Report on the excavation of a building at Wall, near Lichfield, which appears to have been a Roman mansio providing overnight accommodation, associated with the bath-house excavated nearby in 1971. Finds from the pre-construction and Phase 1 levels suggest that construction of the earliest buildings was roughly contemporary with the barrack block of the Neronian fort located nearby, although the first courtyard building is difficult to reconcile with fort plans of the period. Part of a building of the same period adjoining the northeast corner of the courtyard building is thought to be a stores building. These were destroyed by fire in the early Flavian period. A Phase 2 courtyard building, also of wattle-and-daub and similar in shape and size to the Phase 1 building, featured wall-plaster which was decorated in floral designs; the east foundation wall containing stones carved with Celtic heads, warrior figures, and two rough inscriptions (published separately in South Staffordshire Archaeological & Historical Society Transactions 21 (1980) pages 1--11), as well as a stone-walled structure to the north, belong to this phase. The Phase 2 buildings were dismantled in 140--50 AD and replaced by a stone mansio, robber trenches from the earlier buildings being filled with coarse and fine ware pottery fragments (including an increasing proportion of BB1 coarse ware), kitchen waste, and personal items. This building appears to have been of two storeys, with a front colonnade and precinct defined by a wall. The Phase 3 building was destroyed by fire, apparently in the late-second century. Separately authored contributions include

The paper presents the calendared text of a survey of a medieval rectory house at Clifton Campville, southeast Staffordshire; the survey was made in 1453 under a commission appointed to determine the cost of making repairs to the property.

The paper considers the history prior to enclosure of a large area of heathland known as The Coldfield, to the west and south of Sutton Park, Sutton Coldfield. It summarises the documentary evidence for the development of The Coldfield, the archaeological evidence which previously existed, and new evidence from fieldwalking. A consideration of these suggests that The Coldfield was heathland used for rough grazing by at least the Roman period, that this landscape was conserved through the Middle Aged by its inclusion in a hunting reserve, and that there is little evidence for charcoal burning actually on The Coldfield.