after the abandonment of Slack,
to guard another pass over the Pennine, that by way of Blackstone Edge.

It is to be hoped that these interesting excavations may be continued
and completed.

(xii) _Holt._ At Holt, eight miles south of Chester on the Denbighshire
bank of the Dee, Mr. Arthur Acton has further explored the very
interesting tile and pottery works of the Twentieth Legion, of which I
spoke in my Report for 1913 (p. 15). The site is not even yet exhausted.
But enough has been discovered to give a definite picture of it, and as
it may perhaps not be possible to continue the excavations at present,
and as the detailed report which Mr. Acton projects may take time to
issue, I shall try here, with his permission, to summarize very briefly
his most noteworthy results. I have to thank him for supplying me with
much information and material for illustrations.

Holt combines the advantages of excellent clay for pottery and tile
making,[3] good building stone (the Bunter red sandstone), and an easy
waterway to Chester. Here the legion garrisoning Chester established, in
the latter part of the first century, tile and pottery works for its own
use and presumably also for the use of other neighbouring garrisons.
Traces of these works were noted early in the seventeenth century,
though they were not then properly understood.[4] In 1905 the late Mr.
A. N. Palmer, of Wrexham, identified the site in two fields called Wall
Lock and Hilly Field, just outside the village of Holt, and here, since
1906, Mr. Acton has, at his own cost, carefully and systematically
carried out excavations.

[Footnote 3: A Bronze Age burial (fig. 6, D) suggests that the clay may
have been worked long before the Romans.]

[Footnote 4: References are given by Watkin, _Cheshire_, p. 305,
and Palmer, _Archaeologia Cambrensis_, 1906, pp. 225 foll.]

[Illustration: FIG. 5. ROMAN SITE NEAR HOLT

(1. Barracks?; 2. Dwelling and Bath-house; 3. Kiln; 4. Drying-room, &c.
5. Kilns; 6. Work-rooms?; 7. Clay-pits)]

The discoveries show a group of structures scattered along a bank about
a quarter of a mile in length which stands slightly above the Dee and
the often flooded meadows beside it (fig. 5). At the west end of this
area (fig. 5, no. 1, and fig. 6) was a large rectangular enclosure of
about 62 x 123 yards (rather over 1-1/2 acres), girt with a strong wall
7 feet thick. Within it were five various rows of rooms mostly 15 feet
square, with drains; som