Rescue excavation between 1988 and 1990 in advance of river erosion examined a substantial part of the small medieval rural hospital of St Giles by Brompton Bridge and later post-medieval farm. Established in the latter half of the twelfth century for the infirm, including lepers, the hospital layout consisted of a detached stone chapel adjacent to the river crossing, with a timber hall to the west. This hall was destroyed by fire, and a sequence of timber buildings were then constructed in adjacent areas. By the fifteenth century these structures also included a stone building, possibly a refectory. The first small chapel was replaced in the thirteenth century by a larger structure, which went through a period of expansion and then subsequent contraction by the fifteenth century. Only in the fourteenth century were a hall, probably a guesthouse or the master's lodgings, and dovecote built adjacent to the chapel. The cemetery to the south of the chapel was partially examined. The site appears to have been a largely economically self-suffident unit with an attached farm. The hospital was abandoned during the latter half of the fifteenth century, but the site and some of the buildings were subsequently reoccupied as a farm from the mid-seventeenth century. The farmhouse underwent conversion from a long house to a house of hearth-passage plan in the early eighteenth century. The former chapel was reused as a byre and additional stables constructed. The farm was moved to its present location to the south in the mideighteenth century and the former hospital site finally abandoned. INTRODUCTION The site of the medieval hospital of St Giles by Brompton Bridge is located in the county of North Yorkshire between Swaledale and the Vale of Mowbray (Illus. 1). Situated on the south bank of the River Swale in the parish of Brough with St Giles (SE 209996), the site lies approximately 1 km west ofBrompton-on-Swale and 4 km south-east of Richmond. St Giles Farm, which retains the name of the former hospital, is located 0.3 km to the south of the site.St Giles by Brompton Bridge was a small rural hospital whose name was derived from its location by the river crossing of a former road from the south towards Richmond and Swaledale to the north-west. No evidence for the medieval Brompton Bridge survives, although the name has continued in use and now refers to a bridge across Skeeby Beck some 0.3 km north-east of the hospital site. The line of the road

At Hollow Banks Quarry, Scorton, located just north of Catterick (N Yorks.), a highly unusual group of 15 late Roman burials was excavated between 1998 and 2000. The small cemetery consists of almost exclusively male burials, dated to the fourth century. An unusually large proportion of these individuals was buried with crossbow brooches and belt fittings, suggesting that they may have been serving in the late Roman army or administration and may have come to Scorton from the Continent. Multi-isotope analyses (carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and strontium) of nine sufficiently well-preserved individuals indicate that seven males, all equipped with crossbow brooches and/or belt fittings, were not local to the Catterick area and that at least six of them probably came from the European mainland. Dietary (carbon and nitrogen isotope) analysis only of a tenth individual also suggests a non-local origin. At Scorton it appears that the presence of crossbow brooches and belts in the grave was more important for suggesting non-British origins than whether or not they were worn. This paper argues that cultural and social factors played a crucial part in the creation of funerary identities and highlights the need for both multi-proxy analyses and the careful contextual study of artefacts.

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