This slim volume is a collection of fourteen papers delivered at a conference held at Arbeia (South Shields) in 2006 to mark the publication of the 14th edition of the Handbook to the Roman W all (ed. D.J. Breeze). The papers divide into five subject areas: the historiography of the Wall; the Wall as a resource for research; the significance of artefactual evidence pertaining to the frontier community at large; the British and German frontiers; and, finally, papers addressing issues as diverse as the direction of planning in the eastern sector and whether the Wall possessed a wall-walk.

The three historiographic papers commence with Breeze's overview of Wall-studies from Collingwood Bruce's day to the present. He examines the way in which long-accepted views as to the Wall's appearance and its specific function have altered over time, with control rather than denial of movement emerging as the consensual view. The theme of changing views of the Wall's history is both continued and enlarged upon by Dobson in his critical study of some of the key stages in the development of Wall-studies between the appearance of the 12th and 13th editions of the Handbook. Here the holding of the first Roman Northern Frontier Seminar in 1970 looms large. Breeze's homily that ‘we should seek to build a consensus from the various strands of evidence rather than create a theory and squeeze the evidence into it’, culminates in the third historiographic paper, namely Hodgson's recension of the so-called Wall Periods with a view to placing the frontier within an acceptable 21st-century politico-military as well as a socio-historical framework. For Hodgson the debate is predicated on one key issue — whether there are distinct and datable horizons of change discernible in the archaeological record or whether we are viewing what is in essence a seamless process of gradual change along the frontier. He opts for the former, noting how policy decisions taken at the heart of the Empire may have affected the Wall and its garrisons. Wall-periods remain valid then, but in substantially modified form. Drawing upon a wide range of information, for the majority of readers Hodgson's paper will be among the most significant in the volume.

Hingley's paper ‘Hadrian's Wall in theory: pursuing new agendas?’ briefly considers the reasons for the decline of research interest (primarily among universities) in Britannia's premier monument and suggests how a number of research agendas could revive that spirit of enquiry. Newman's ‘Whose Wall is it? The value of Hadrian's Wall as an archaeological resource’ pursues a more holistic agenda, ranging from funding for research, to conservation and small-scale, but valuable evaluation work, within an over-arching Research Framework for the monument. Allason-Jones provides an excellent overview of the significance of finds, ranging from those which figure in the Vindolanda tablets and thus possibly long-consumed, to those which are still extant, for the study of the Wall community at large. In a truly magisterial paper titled ‘Builders, suppliers and supplies in the Tyne-Solway region and beyond’, the late Vivien Swan examines the supply network which existed from the Hadrianic to Severan period and the kinds of information that can be gleaned from the production and distribution of a range of what are essentially ceramic products. In a perceptive and scholarly discourse drawing heavily upon her analysis of the ceramic assemblages from Carlisle, coupled with her own research interests, in her inimitable style she demonstrates how the integration of ceramic and epigraphic analyses has the potential to transform our understanding of many aspects of frontier history, including the origins and connections of the Wall garrisons.

Two papers, by Thiel and Woolliscroft, give a wider dimension to Wall studies; the former examining the Antonine limes and revising the date of the provision of ditch and bank to the palisade; the latter extending his study of signalling from Hadrian's Wall to the Wetterau. The remaining papers by Poulter, Shotter, Austen, Wilmott and Bidwell explore such diverse themes as the background to the establishment of the North British frontier and problems such as projecting forts, the nature and function of the vallum and the nature of the wall-top. It is refreshing to see how modern research can correct or modify much of what has been taken for granted in the past as well as pointing to the need for further work. Some of these problems have since been further aired, though not in such depth, in two recent publications: Hodgson's Hadrian's Wall 1999–2009 (2009) and Bidwell and Hodgson's The Roman Army in Northern England (2009). Coupled with this handsomely-produced cornucopia they illustrate the vibrancy of North British frontier studies, as well as their relevance to the study of Roman Britain as a whole. The Arbeia Society is to be congratulated in offering an outlet for such valuable research. The reviewer deems this an essential purchase for all those professing an interest in Roman frontier studies.