Journal of the Chester Archaeological Society 54

During construction work no systematic archaeological excavation was possible, but the site was watched and a plan drawn. Features seen included the inner face of the medieval city wall, which contained reused Roman stone blocks including a fragmentary tombstone; the Agricolan rampart of turf, clay and sand; the intervallum road with remains of three (rebuilt) legionary ovens, a barrack building in stone, presumably not earlier than c 100 AD; and the verandah of the next barrack. Also on site were pits, sandstone walls and other features of Roman to post-medieval date. Partly overlying the barrack building were four burials, probably belonging to the nearby church. Samian and coarse wares of early Flavian to Trajanic date were recovered together with several medieval pieces including a louvre. Note: other short reports on Chester sites by this author appear in the same volume.

Study of the (pre-1811) multi-township parishes of Cheshire, Flintshire, Denbighshire and Montgomeryshire shows them to be in the same category as those of Northern England, where there are usually several townships per parish (over thirty in some parishes) and the average area is over six square miles per parish. By contrast, in SE England the average is less than 1¾ townships per parish and the average size of parish is under 4½ sq miles. While it is true that economic factors are important - an area tends to have as many churches as it can afford to build and maintain - other formative influences include early patterns of settlement, whether the early church was Celtic or English, and the degree of Anglo-Saxon or Norman political control. It also becomes clear that a major part in shaping the rural landscape has been played by diocesan policies, which have influenced social and economic developments as well as spiritual matters.