Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society 78

Archaeological fieldwork at Enderby and Huncote has recorded two contrasting clayland late Iron Age enclosures. At Enderby (SP 550 999), a cropmark enclosure was excavated in advance of proposed development. The enclosure revealed at least two main phases of occupation, characterised by a pair of differing sized roundhouses enclosed within a large ditch. Evidence for a gated entrance into the enclosure was also revealed. To the west of Forest Road, Huncote (SP 516 985), some 4km to the south-west, a sub-rectangular Iron Age enclosure was located close to the discovery of a late Iron Age linch pin. This was a small farmstead, which was in use during the late Iron Age with possible continuation into the early Roman period. This included two circular buildings and a later series of stock control boundaries within the enclosure. The excavations have enabled comparisons in the chronology, development, trading contacts and economies of these two neighbouring Later Iron Age settlements to be made.

This article explores the provenance and transmission of the crucifix. In 1811 the first account was published of a fifteenth century gilt bronze crucifix, reportedly found in 1778 at the Bosworth battlefield site. However a footnote to this account speculated that the object might have been found near Husbands Bosworth rather than on the battlefield site. Subsequently the provenance of the Bosworth Crucifix has remained a matter of debate.

William Camden (1551–1623) stands out as one of the founding fathers of English Local History, with Britannia (1586) his chief claim to fame. This article takes stock of the remarkable shelf life of this classic book, its aims, methodology, structure and achievement. Camden’s account of Leicestershire receives special attention. By virtue of its agenda, Britannia needs to be seen as a work of national re-discovery, while its enthusiastic reception by the author’s contemporaries demonstrates how much it contributed to the defining and development of ‘Englishness’ in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

The Countess of Huntingdon’s Connexion by Alan Harding (Oxford University Press, 2003)