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

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DIAGNOSISOne of us (V.F.B.) discovered a specimen incorrectly labeled 'Toluca' in the British Musewn (Natural History) [B.M.(N.H.)] Collection. Microscopic examination of a sample from the 26.1 kg slice, B.M. 47192, revealed that it is from a member of chemical group IIIE and not from Toluca, which belongs to group I (Wasson, 1970). Chemical analyses confirm this classification and indicate that this specimen is not from one of the seven falls ascribed to group IIIE by Scott et al, (1973). Because the provenance of this iron is unknown, we propose the name "Paneth's Iron" to honour one of its investigators'.Paneth's Iron is a coarse octahedrite with bandwidth, 1.5±0.3 mm. Its mineralogy is similar to that of low-Ni group IIIB members but its coarse, short and swollen kamacite lamellae, and the presence of graphite from carbide decay in some plessite fields confirm its inclusion in group IIIE. Neither fusion crust nor heat-affected rim was found, both having been removed by terrestrial weathering which has, in addition, produced much corrosion along grain boundaries. The original structure of the B.M.(N.H.) specimen, and possibly of the remainder of the mass, has been altered by artificial re-heating, hammering, and chiselling. Abundant schreibersites forming grain-boundary veinlets and matrix rhabdites have begun to dissolve in the kamacite and show a thorny interface. Kamacite and schreibersite have reacted with the limonitic corrosion products to form weird, lace-like textures. Numerous millimetre-sized troilite blebs have recrystallized. However, there are indications that the artificial heating was not uniform and the end-piece formerly in Paneth's collection and now at Mainz (see below) may have been only mildly reheated. In one corner of the B.M.(N.H.) polished specimen a plessite field contains re-heated haxonite, (Fe,N023C6, and in Paneth's specimen many plessite interiors have imperfectly developed

Antiquarian and modern excavations at Castor, Cambs., have been taking place since the seventeenth century. The site, which lies under the modern village, has been variously described as a Roman villa, a guild centre and a palace, while Edmund Artis working in the 1820s termed it the 'Praetorium'. The Roman buildings covered an area of 3.77 ha (9.4 acres) and appear to have had two main phases, the latter of which formed a single unified structure some 130 by 90 m. This article attempts to draw together all of the previous work at the site and provide a comprehensive plan, a set of suggested dates, and options on how the remains could be interpreted.

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