I see that Volume 3 of The Making of the West Midlands series was published at the end of April: Clash of Cultures?: The Romano-British Period in the West Midlands.

Surveys the archaeology (inc. posing the question “two regions?”); the fortresses and forts; then Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire (cropmark evidence “excluded from this volume”, it notes there). There’s also a landscape-use chapter, one on distribution of coin-finds with some heavy maths, and one that tries to join up all the ceramics evidence. The chapter on religious sites focuses on Wroxter, Coleshill, Rocester and Wall. Finally, and possibly most interestingly, “The West Midlands in the fifth and sixth centuries”, but that’s completely unavailable as a preview.

Interesting to see how everything funnelled toward Penkridge…

… and yet there’s been hardly any investigation of the site, and thus the book can only give it a short paragraph that speculates it may have been strung out along the Watling Street.

New PhD. Networks, innovation and knowledge: the North Staffordshire Potteries, 1750-1851 (2017), now online and public. It…

“reconstructs the district at the firm level, showing that the region’s growth was incredibly dynamic. The spatial concentration of producers and the importance of social and business networks are also explored through a new map of the region in 1802 and social network analysis. … a study of a craft-based, highly skilled industry without a legacy of formal institutions such as guilds to govern and protect access to knowledge”

The 1802 map.

Excellent colour engraving by Norman Stevens ARA, of the court at The Egyptian Garden, Biddulph Grange, 1982.

He’s got the correct type of pylon, rather than a pyramid, and it’s suitably dark and foreboding. Very nice. Prints seem to still be available.