High Lights O UR latest innovation in Current Archaeology is an extended inter view. After the short portrait of David Miles in our last issue, several readers suggested that an interview should be a permanent feature, so we decided to choose the husband and wife team of Henry Hurst and Catherine Hills. Catherine Hills is fronting the new Channel 4 archaeology programme "Down to Earth" but we thought it would be a good idea to talk to her husband, Henry Hurst, as well. The idea then grew. We began to discuss with Catherine her excavations at the Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Spong Hill but when we turned to Henry he began talking about Gloucester which we covered in CA 29, then went on to Carthage (CA 93) and ended up with the forum of Rome itself, where he has been digging up Caligula's palace.
A big surprise this summer was the Roman villa at Redlands Farm near Stanwick in Northamptonshire. This small villa is the first known example of a yuppie mill conversion. It was built over an old mill but the end wall of the new villa was built over the leat of the old mill. This led to trouble, so they demolished the wing. The wall was just pushed over, and the archaeologists found it where it lay, the complete end wall, a mere 90 degrees out of true. The site is adjacent to the Stanwick Roman villa being dug by English Heritage as part of the Raunds Area Project but in these days of contract archaeology, the contract to dig the Redlands Farm site was won by the Oxford Archaeological Unit - who struck lucky on their first project in Northamptonshire.
Other features show some of the work done this summer with Roman forts bissected by road building on the A66 and a Roman counterfeiter at work in Milton Keynes. We also have some nice grisly skeletons from Norwich, medieval bridges and an article that tells you how Roman towns were laid out.
The other major novelty is the supplement at the centre which we have produced in conjunction with the Thames/Channel 4 television "Down to Earth" programme. This will be distributed with the magazine free to those who write in to their Helpline. We welcome all the new readers to Current Archaeology. Good reading!
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