This attractively produced, accessible and competitively priced volume offers the first modern systematic overview of the Roman town at Aldborough, North Yorkshire. It is based on the substantial fieldwork carried out by Ferraby, who was responsible for organising and conducting the geophysical work, the interpretation of which underpins the core of this book. Millett's contribution lies in the broader contextualisation of the study and in assembling the resources to ensure the programme took place. One of the more important contributions of this study is to bring together the fresh data from the geophysical surveys with the contributions made by earlier antiquarians and archaeologists alongside the results of surface survey implemented by Colin Dobinson in the ploughed hinterland of the site in the 1980s and 1990s. The antiquarian record forms a substantial component of the current volume, while the data from the surface survey and geophysical surveys are available electronically (https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/275723/recent-submissions offers the easiest route into the whole archive, while https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/294062 supplies the digital layered plan and gazetteer).

The volume is commendably condensed and conventionally structured. The first chapter establishes the context for the survey and for the locational and physical characteristics of the site. Chapter 2 summarises the antiquarian and archaeological research, much of which took place at a surprisingly early date so that substantial remains were open to visitors by 1840. Although this research was published in 1852 (H. Ecroyd-Smith, Reliquiae Isurianae: The Remains of Roman Isurium, now Aldborough, near Boroughbridge, Yorkshire (1852)), the volume offers an important summation of all previous work on the site, complete with extensive illustrations in a substantial appendix, and crucially corroborates the locations of many previous interventions. Importantly, this gazetteer of interventions is woven into the narrative offered in chapter 3, which presents the results of the geophysical surveys (gradiometry and ground-penetrating radar).

The geophysical and archaeological data presented in chapter 3 are succinctly summarised and relatively easy to follow, although obviously there is much page-flipping as one follows the narrative and locates the items discussed on the lucid and beautifully presented illustrations. Items are discussed in relation to broad areas of the town and its hinterland, which allows wider understanding to develop. The final chapter provides a narrative of the site and its development over the Roman period, with consideration too of the immediate pre-Roman background and post-Roman activity. In addition to the appendix on the previous archaeological and antiquarian discoveries, further appendices offer concordances with RIB and CSIR, a catalogue of architectural stonework and a list of stone altars from the site.

As has been demonstrated now on several largely abandoned Roman towns, extensive geophysical survey inside and outside the walls offers unparalleled opportunities for consideration of the broader narratives of the establishment, growth and decline of these sites (e.g., W. Bowden and D. Bescoby, ‘The plan of Venta Icenorum (Caistor-by-Norwich): interpreting a new geophysical survey’, Journal of Roman Archaeology 21 (2008) 325–33; J. Creighton and R. Fry, Silchester: Changing Visions of a Roman Town: Integrating Geophysics and Archaeology (2013) (the most authoritative example of the genre); R.H. White, C. Gaffney and V.L. Gaffney, Wroxeter, the Cornovii, and the Urban Process: Final Report on the Wroxeter Hinterland Project 1994–1997 (2013)). The focus here on consideration of the broader hinterland allows the development of a convincing and succinctly argued interpretation of the data without it becoming bogged down in detail. The argument is put forward that Aldborough has no convincing evidence for a military foundation or Iron Age predecessor, but rather, like London, was founded by civilian traders attracted by the wealth to be gained from the army's conquest of northern Britain. The argument that conquest of northern Britain was logistically supported by coastal and riverine trade has much to commend it: the road network followed, connecting existing military establishments in the landscape.

Not much is known of this early town, but it seems concentrated to the north of the site, away from the rising ground to the south. The establishment of the town as a planned entity appears to lie around 120 and involved major terracing of the southern end of the site. While no imperial assistance is argued for, the broader question of how such substantial work was resourced remains unanswered. The creation of the town wall is tentatively suggested to lie in the later second century, with its northern edge located somewhat beyond and at an angle to the street grid, a line perhaps chosen to mark the edge of the floodplain (shown on fig. 4.2), increasing its visibility for those travelling to the site by river. The later Roman evidence is limited to the heightening and renewal of the defences and the addition of annexes to the north and east, which are plausibly suggested to be compounds for the secure storage of tax-in-kind (annona). The evidence of investment in larger town houses and mosaics in this period argues for the regional importance of the site. The very end of the Roman phase is marked by the enigmatic creation of a gate and trackway extending into the eastern hinterland of the town, here tentatively placed in the fifth century.

There is much of value to the volume, not least in the extensive and intriguing evidence for mausolea and enclosures in the hinterland, even if the detailed development and dating of the site will have to await further excavation. In the meantime, it adds significantly to our understanding of the range and variety of Romano-British towns. Perhaps its greatest benefit lies in providing the tools for the management and protection of this important landscape.