Roman Britain

Kelmscott Manor is forever linked with the name of William Morris, pioneer conservationist and utopian socialist, designer and father of the Arts and Crafts tradition. The manor played a crucial role in shaping his thought: at the climactic moment of his futuristic novel, News from Nowhere, Morris lifts the latch of the Manors garden gate and finds his personal holy grail. Morris was drawn by the organic relationship between Kelmscott and its landscape: the linkage of stone walls and roof tiles to the geology and the soil, and the honest toil of the people to the agricultural cycle . The...

The Frontier area of northern England is the most important and reliable source for archaeologists in existence. The perpetuation of the Roman imperial ideal, the survival of classical art and literature, and the spread of the Christian faith depended on the strength of the Empire's frontier and the people who lived there. In Britain these peoples represent nearly 400 years of a cosmopolitan society with the basic elements of a true civilisation. They had greater freedom and security and were more literate and prosperous than at any previous time or for many centuries after. Dr Salway's study...