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Rosalind
Niblett and Isobel Thompson.
Alban's
Buried Towns: An Assessment of St Albans' Archaeology up to AD 1600.
Oxbow,
2005.
ISBN
1842171496.
Hardback.
414p, 6
plans, 12 tables, 156 figs.
Publisher's
recommended price £40.00
St Albans has a long
tradition of archaeological investigation dating back to the 18th
century. What has been lacking however, is a detailed synthesis and
interpretation of the accumulated information. This book is intended to
meet that need, and comes out of a project set up by English Heritage
in 1992 designed to promote 'intensive' urban archaeological strategy.
This volume is a critical assessment of the current archaeological
information from an area of 12 square kilometers centred on medieval
and modern St Albans and its Roman predecessor, Verulamium. There is
evidence of scattered occupation in the area from the Mesolithic period
onwards, but it was only towards the end of the 1st century BC that a
settlement was established to the south of the modern town. This was
superseded by the development of the Roman town of Verulamium on the
south side of the River Ver, but by the 8th century settlement had
become focused on the shrine of the late Roman martyr, Alban, on the
hill to the north of the river. In the late Saxon period an Abbey was
established close to this shrine, and after the Norman conquest,
settlement concentrated in the area north of the Abbey. Most of the
monastic buildings were demolished shortly after the dissolution of the
monastery in 1539, but on the whole St Albans retained its medieval
form until the 19th century. The papers in this volume look at the
development of this important city throughout its long history,
bringing its Roman and Medieval past to life.
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