Cotswold Archaeology - Mick Aston Annual Lecture

Britain's Forgotten Kingdoms, After Rome

The annual Mick Aston Lecture is one of the better evenings Cirencester puts on — named after the archaeologist and Time Team presenter, and held each year in the Corinium Museum, which is about as fitting a setting as you could find for a talk on what happened to Britain when the Romans left.

This year's speaker is Professor Stephen Rippon of the University of Exeter, and his subject is the kingdoms that filled the void in the west — places like Dumnonia, covering what is now Devon, Cornwall, and Somerset — that existed from the 5th to mid-7th centuries while Anglo-Saxon culture was taking hold in the east. His argument is that too much scholarship has focused on eastern England, leaving the western British kingdoms largely overlooked.

The lecture draws on landscape archaeology, material culture, and new research to put them back in the picture — without simply creating a new east-versus-west divide.

A 90-minute talk for anyone who has ever wondered what actually happened in those centuries after the legions pulled out. In person at the Corinium, £5. Also free to stream online via Eventbrite if you can't make it to Cirencester.

Wednesday 10 June 2026 · Corinium Museum, Park Street, Cirencester GL7 2BX · 7pm