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This issue of CA has a watery theme. We start with Graeme Young’s account of excavating burnt mounds in the wetlands of Bamburgh in Northumberland. Are these mounds the waste from large-scale brewing or were the heated stones used to provide steam for a sauna? Next, Robert Van de Noort tells our Assistant Editor, Carly Hilts, about the construction of a replica Bronze Age boat. Nervous moments preceded the launch, but Morgawr, as she was dubbed, proved to be a sleek and seaworthy vessel. Boats of a different kind – flat-bottomed punts – were used to carry goods by canal in Roman East Anglia. Deep in the Fens, Chris Evans and his team have excavated a port settlement that probably supplied the Saxon Shore forts with food.

Assistant Editor, Carly Hilts, about the construction of a replica Bronze Age boat.

Our cover story, celebrating the 200th anniversary of the seaside leisure pier, coincides with the fire that damaged much of Eastbourne pier on 31 July 2014. Fortunately nobody was hurt, but the fire reminds us that so many piers have suffered a similar fate. The tragic outbreak of the First World War marked the end of the golden age of pier-building. Emily Glass tells us about the ‘Home Front and Its Legacies’ pilot project, set up to ask how buildings and land were used to support Britain’s war-effort between 1914 and 1918.

All this and more... we review the new detective novel by Francis Pryor, a long-standing friend of this magazine – and it’s a winner! Could Francis be the next Agatha Christie?

Our contributors this month

BRITISH SEASIDE PIERS TIM PHILLIPS Tim Phillips is Chairman of the National Piers Society, founded in 1979. The NPS encourages local communities to cherish and make good use of surviving piers, of which Britain has more than any other country in the world.

HOPPENWOOD BANK GRAEME YOUNG One of four directors of the Bamburgh Research Project, Graeme Young has a particular interest in the Early Medieval period but he has excavated sites dating from the Mesolithic to the recent past over a 26-year career.

BUILDING MORGAWR ROBERT VAN DE NOORT Robert Van de Noort studies the archaeology of terrestrial and coastal wetlands. Since the discovery of the ‘Kilnsea boat’ in the Humber estuary in 1996, he has been fascinated by Bronze Age sewn-plank boats.

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Editorial Acting editor: Christopher Catling chris@archaeology.co.uk Tel: 020 8819 5580 Dr Matthew Symonds is on sabbatical Art editor: Mark Edwards mark.edwards@currentpublishing.com Designer: Lauren Gamp lauren.gamp@currentpublishing.com Assistant editor: Carly Hilts carly@currentpublishing.com Sub editor: Simon Coppock Editor-in-chief: Andrew Selkirk 9 Nassington Road, London NW3 2TX andrew@archaeology.co.uk Tel: 020 8819 5584 Managing director: Robert Selkirk

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