Despite the death of the excavator and the untimely loss of the author of the report, the results of the excavations of 1960–61 at the fort of Haltonchesters on Hadrian's Wall are a welcome addition to a number of excavation reports from the northern frontier. Tragically, Gillam died before he was able to finalise analysis and publication of the excavations. John Dore, a former student of Gillam, took on the responsibility of writing up the final report. Sadly, he too passed away before the manuscript was ready for publication, but he left a substantially complete document, which Alan Rushworth graciously brought to press.

The report is separated into eleven chapters and three appendices. Ch. 1 discusses previous work, together with the post-excavation history, archive and methodology of the current report. Chs 2 through 6 provide interpretations of individual structures investigated, before weaving the results into a narrative overview. Given the various complexities brought about by the excavation method, the archive, and the loss of the excavator, the primary archive is presented in chs 7–11, including a structural synopsis and specialist reports on the coins, samian and potters' stamps, other pottery, and small finds. Appendix I reprints statements provided during or shortly after the excavation by Gillam, while Appendix II lists the contexts of finds groups relative to the individual trenches. Appendix III provides a table cross-referencing contexts and locations of small finds with specialist report catalogues.

The report is relatively slim in comparison with contemporary excavation reports, but the comparison is unfair for a number of reasons, not least of which are the methods employed, the date of the excavations, and the death of the excavator. Accepting these limitations, D. is to be congratulated for his succinct interpretation, and for making the surviving primary information available for interrogation. The excavation was conducted during an era when the Wall-periods framework dominated British frontier studies. This interpretive framework imposed a uniform chronology to sites along the entire Wall corridor, and its strictures permeated the original methodology and interpretation of the Haltonchesters investigations. D. concluded that the excavations were too deeply embedded in the Wall-periods framework to extract this ideology from the report (7). Since 1976, when Breeze and Dobson effectively dismissed the Wall-periods straightjacket, frontier scholars have had to grapple with (re)interpretation of older excavations. The decision to make the stratigraphy of box trenches available for detailed interrogation in ch. 7 allows the reader to assess D.'s interpretations, supported by information in Appendices II and III.

There are a number of important aspects in the report that have broader implications for the history of the frontier. Haltonchesters was one of the few remaining sites with evidence for a destructive event in the late second century (the close of Wall-period I, c. a.d. 180–195), but D. contests the strength of the evidence. Although a significant burnt deposit was encountered in various areas of the fort, it was intermittent, and cannot be dated more closely than late second century (38–9). Similarly, the proposed abandonment of the fort in the late third/early fourth century (the close of Wall-period III) has been dismissed. Another distinctive feature encountered at Haltonchesters is the ‘park railing stones’ that have been confidently cited as evidence for the erection of new structures in the last third of the fourth century. These cannot be dated so precisely at Haltonchesters; while in use in the final decades of the fourth century, their origins may be slightly earlier, as some of the structures cannot be confined to the years after c. a.d. 370. However, their occurrence at other fort sites, most recently in the Carlisle Millennium excavations, confirms a mid to late fourth-century date. That said, the third- and fourth-century remains are difficult to separate into distinct phases, although this is possible for some individual structures.

The difficulties encountered with the stratigraphic sequence, due to the method of excavation by box trench and marriage to the Wall-periods, are balanced by the specialist reports, all of which have been adjusted to account for gains in knowledge from the time that they were originally written. Ultimately this has altered or refined the dating of some stratigraphic sequences, but more importantly brings the coins, ceramics, and small finds in line with contemporary standards.

The Oxbow volume has been produced to a high standard, well illustrated throughout. D. has overcome many of the difficulties of writing up an excavation following the death of the excavator, with steps taken to reduce the impact of the remaining complexities and inadequacies. As such, the report is another important contribution to the growing body of recent excavation reports from the northern frontier.