Over 400 recent finds associated with horses and excavated in London, from the utilitarian to the highly decorated, illustrated and discussed. Whether knight's charger or beast of burden, horses played a vital role in medieval life. The wealth of medieval finds excavated in London in recent years has, not surprisingly, included many objects associated with horses. This catalogue illustrates and discusses over four hundred such objects, among them harness, horseshoes, spurs and curry combs, from the utilitarian to highly decorative pieces. London served by horse traffic comes vividly in view. The introductory chapter draws on historical as well as archaeological sources to consider the role of the horse in medieval London. It looks at the price of horses and the costs of maintaining them, the hiring of 'hackneys' forriding, the use of carts in and around London, and the work of the 'marshal' or farrier. It discusses the evidence for the size of medieval horses and includes a survey of finds of medieval horse skeletons from London. It answersthe key questions, how large a 'Great Horse' was, and why it took three horses to pull a cart. This is a basic work of reference for archaeologists and those studying medieval artefacts, and absorbing reading for everyone interested in the history of the horse and its use by humankind. JOHN CLARK is Curator (Medieval) at the Museum of London.

London's Spitalfields Market was the location of one of the city's largest archaeological excavations, carried out by MOLA between 1991 and 2007. This book presents the archaeological and bioarchaeological evidence for Roman activity here, to the north-east of the urban settlement and the site of a series of burial grounds on the east side of Ermine Street. Burial began here c AD 120 and continued into the 4th century AD. Excavation revealed a number of ditched enclosures, some used for the interment of 169 inhumations and five cremation burials, some for other purposes. Among the early burials men outnumbered women by five to one, but by the later 3rd and 4th centuries AD a more even sex ratio prevailed. Subadults were well represented, with one area apparently set aside for the burial of neonates and children. The cemetery attracted some particularly wealthy 4th-century AD burials, including at least two in stone sarcophagi, one of which contained an inner, decorated, lead coffin enclosing a young woman. She had been anointed with imported resins and buried in fine clothing, with unusual glassware and jet items. Some burial rites and grave goods are more familiar from Continental cemeteries, emphasising the cosmopolitan and mobile nature of London's population.

Excavations in the upper Walbrook valley, in a marginal area in the north-west of the Roman city, recovered over 70kg of broken vessel glass and production waste from a nearby workshop, giving new insights into the workings of the glass industry and its craftsmen. The area was developed in the early 2nd century AD, with evidence of domestic buildings and property boundaries. Two later buildings constructed in the mid 2nd century AD may have been associated with the glass-working industry. The disposal of a huge amount of glass-working waste in the later 2nd century signals the demise of the workshop, with the area reverting to open land by the 3rd century AD. The comprehensive nature of the glass-working waste has made it possible to study the various processes - from the preparation of the raw materials in the form of cullet, broken vessel and window glass, to the blowing and finishing of the vessel. All the glass originated ultimately in the eastern Mediterranean, some of it arriving as raw glass chunks, which was supplemented by cullet collected locally for recycling. A review of the current evidence for glass working in London also examines the implications for the organisation of the industry.

This report presents an overview of Roman urban development in London south of the Thames. The establishment of the Roman bridge and the first approach roads and landing places, made Southwark an ideal location for the development of facilities for the trans-shipment of goods between land and river. The wide range of data from 41 previously unpublished north Southwark sites provides the means for 'mapping' Roman activity in Southwark: the nature of the early settlement, changing patterns of land use and broader processes of social and economic change. Early land reclamation preceded the establishment of a thriving trade centre involved in the redistribution or marketing of locally processed and imported goods, with evidence of a concentration of buildings burnt in Boudican fire of AD 61 along the main road to the bridgehead. Increased land reclamation and construction of more masonry buildings in the 2nd century AD indicate further growth. By the 3rd century large stone buildings at ten of the sites reported suggest an administrative area housing official residences. After the mid 4th century the settlement contracted to the area immediately around the bridgehead with a cemetery on previously occupied land to the south.

Excavations in Syon Park, Brentford, have made a substantial contribution to our knowledge of this Roman rural settlement on the London-Silchester road, by a ford across the Thames. The site yielded a well-dated sequence - from the mid 1st to early 5th century AD - including occupation deposits and two 2nd-century timber buildings destroyed by fire, as well as details of the main road and adjacent field system. These and a large assemblage of finds, including a surgical instrument and a roundel depicting the Medusa, provide a rare glimpse of life in the countryside in the hinterland of Londinium. A detailed overview of Roman Brentford (the first to be published since 1978) is included.