Reviews

REVIEWS The Ancient Road to Canterbury. A progress through Kent. By Robert H. Goodsall. Published by the Author, n/p. This is another contribution to the now not inconsiderable hterature on or about the so cahed " Pilgrims' Road ", and in particular about that portion of this ancient way in Kent from Titsey Park to Canterbury. The author fortunately does not come down either on the side of the faithful and orthodox nor of the agnostic and heterodox, and by so doing he avoids the adverse criticism from both parties. Rather he outhnes the main tenets of each and leaves the reader to form his own opinions, though there is little doubt that his chief guide, philosopher and friend is the late Hilaire Behoc, High Priest of the Pilgrim Cult. He is more concerned with the obvious beauty and charm of the North Downs, which he knows so well and describes with a sympathetic pen. The book is a valuable one to such as the present reviewer who walked this path in its entirety, from Winchester to Canterbury first in 1906, for it tehs of changes and of immutability, of tar-macadam in place of flinty or chalky surfaces, of the same overgrown stretches now more impenetrable, and of rows of modern vihas whose address is " Pilgrims' Road or Way " or of the wide expanse of downland that yet survives. Perhaps in his journeyings he strays at times far from his objective ; Sutton-at-Hone and Eynsford have little in common with even the Pilgrims' Way of the Legend and the group of Kentish .Antiquaries assembled to commemorate an earlier one at Ryarsh, might not have found the object of their veneration enthely sympathetic to pilgrim theories. However it is a pleasant and gossipy book, not polemical, a welcome treat which should commend it to many Kentish readers. F.C.E-E. Landscape Drawing. By Geoffrey E. Hutchings. With 100 halftone and line illustrations. Oblong, 9 in. X 5f in. Methuen and Co. 30s. This is an excellent production which wih give pleasure and profit to others than the geography students to whom it is addressed. Mr. Hutchings is a well-known geographer and, as wih be seen, an artist of no mean merit; he is a Kentishman and a member of our Society, who is now responsible for the indexing of Archceologia Cantiana. 207 REVIEWS The Normans in Canterbury. By W. Urry. Occasional Paper No. 2. Canterbury Archceological Society. 1959. 20 pp. 2s. Qd. This pamphlet is the substance of a Paper read by Dr. Urry at the Anglo-French Historical Conference held at the University of Caen in July, 1957. It has been reprinted by permission of the Editor from the Annales de Normandie, May, 1958. The Canterbury Society is to be congratulated on theh enterprise in making this essay available to a wider chcle of interested people, for Dr. Urry has produced a most interesting and authorative account of events in Canterbury and Kent during the eleventh and twelfth centuries. British Archaeology : a Book List. Council for British Archaeology. 1960. 41 pp. 5s. 6ct I t is claimed in the Preface that this new List is something more than a revision of the original Book List for Teachers published in 1949, and the claim is fully justified, and we are glad to see that the reference to teachers has been dropped, for the List wih be of value to all students of history and archseology. The List is in three parts, the first deahng with the various periods of prehistory and history, the second with regional studies and the third devoted to books for children. The List does not claim to be a complete bibliography, and the comphers have wisely refrained from overloading it with the classic works on archaeology, and the productions of national and local Societies. J.H.E. A Guide to Prehistoric England. By Nicholas Thomas. Pp. 268, 69 illustrations. Batsford, Ltd., London, 1960. 30s. I t is always a pleasure to review a worthwhile book by a member of one's own profession. Nicholas Thomas, now Assistant Keeper of Archseology at Bhmingham Museum, has very wisely used the great store of information gathered by the Archseology Division of the Ordnance Survey and so ably kept up-to-date by its officers. One result of this is that outmoded attributions—such as the earthwork at Milbays Wood, Nettlestead, formerly deemed Early Iron Age—are omitted. The Kent field antiquities included in the book are Oldbury (including the Rock Shelters), the long barrow and The Chestnuts at Addington, Coldrum, Juhiberrie's Grave, Kits Coty and Lower Kits Coty, Ringwould round barrows, Bigbury, Caesar's Camp at Keston, Tunbridge Wells High Rocks, and Squerryes Park hhl fort. Mr. Thomas deals succinctly and faithfully with these. 208 REVIEWS So much for Kent material. As the title suggests there is much more to the book than this and it is clearly a " must " for anyone who wishes to know more of this country's early antiquities. An introductory essay of thirty pages, a glossary of archseological terms, and a county by county bibliography round off a useful book of references to " most of the major pre-Roman earthworks of England ". L.R.A.G. Journal of the British Archceological Association, XXII (3rd series), 1959. 25s. I t is not usual for another archseological journal to be reviewed in Archceologia Cantiana but this is a special occasion as this volume contains Ronald Jessup's paper on " Barrows and Wahed Cemeteries in Roman Britain ", which in 1958 won for him the Reginald Taylor Prize. Kent archaeologists whl find that our county is dealt with most handsomely in Mr. Jessup's pages. The Roman tumulus, Holborough Knob, is compared with the Riseholme barrow in Lincolnshire, both of which are the only examples to be thoroughly excavated for almost fifty years. A valuable summary of the results of the Holborough excavation is given. Part I I I of the account is devoted to an annotated list of the wahed cemeteries and allied structures of Roman Britain. Thirteen sites are described in thirteen pages and of these eight—Borden, East Barming, Keston (War Bank), Langley (Joy Wood), Luton, Plaxtol, Southfleet (Springhead) and Sutton Valence—are in Kent. We are ah in Mr. Jessup's debt for bringing together into one place a very scattered amount of published and unpublished material and for so interestingly comparing the results of British with Continental research. The same Journal, for good measure, contains a welcome reassessment of the pre-Conquest work in the N.W. corner of the north naveaisle of Lydd church by E. Dudley C. Jackson and Eric G. M. Fletcher. L.R.A.G. 209