Editorial Notes

EDITORIAL NOTES

For convenience of identification the monuments in the Inventory are grouped (with minor exceptions explained as they occur) under the names of the Civil Parishes in which they now lie. The boundaries of the parishes, as defined on the provisional 6-inch Ordnance Surveys of 1954–61, are shown on a supplementary copy of the general distribution map of monuments, included in the pocket at the end of the volume. Thirty parishes in the Gloucestershire Cotswolds are without relevant monuments so far recognised.

In the text, monuments are located by means of the National Grid (explained inside the covers of O.S. 1-inch maps). Generally, six-figure references are used, permitting location within a square of 100 metres, but eight-figure references (10-metre squares) are given when greater precision is desirable. Altitudes above O.D. are not stated if the information is obtainable from maps or plans in the Inventory. The geology of sites is normally not specified if it is Oolite. A geological map of the area N. and E. of Cirencester appears opposite p. xxiii.

In many parish inventories an opening paragraph gives general information relevant to the Iron Age and Romano-British periods; it also mentions sites and finds which cannot be precisely located. After this the monuments and archaeological sites are listed, each entry being numbered and titled for convenience of reference. It may be that a few of the monuments listed will be shown at some future period to be neither Iron Age nor Romano-British, but they are all included in the present belief that they are one or the other, or both; the term 'undated' means only that there are no small finds to support the assumption. A select bibliography and a list of air photographs follows the entry where appropriate. The N.M.R. has, or has records of, air photographs embracing most of the sites mentioned in the volume.

All maps and plans are orientated with N. at the top of the page. In many parishes the location of sites is indicated by a map at 2½ inches to the mile. Sites revealed by crop-marks on air photographs are mostly illustrated by plans at 6 inches to the mile; a few from which the top-soil has been stripped demand presentation at 1:1250 or 1:2500. As the 6-inch scale hardly admits distinction in widths of ditches etc., certain plates have been included to illustrate the variations. Hill-forts, dykes etc. are presented at 1: 5000 and profiles of these earthworks at 32 ft. to the inch. In hill-fort plans, thick solid lines indicate banks; thin solid lines show edges of ditches or counter-scarp banks; broken lines show the approximate position of former features, now gone; stippled areas are scarps; areas shaded with parallel lines are berms. Plans of most Roman buildings are drawn at 80 ft. to the inch; a few are drawn at 32 ft. to the inch, with an inset plan at 80 ft. to the inch to permit comparison of size. Conversion tables showing Imperial and Metric dimensions will be found on p. 136. While the plans have been redrawn to standard scales, conventions and orientation, the rooms etc. of villas normally retain the numbering or lettering given to them by their excavators. Stippled areas on villa plans denote rooms with mosaic pavements, even though these may be attested only by the presence of unpatterned tesserae; generally the stipple covers the whole area of the room in which mosaics are believed to have existed.