‘Antiquarian’ often refers to those who investigated the past before the emergence of scientific rigour in modern archæology. While there have been re-assessments of antiquarian contributions to the study of the past (ie, Stuart Piggott’s 1989 Ancient Britons and the Antiquarian Imagination), not until the 1990s do we see a reclam­ation of the term, most vividly by Julian Cope with The Modern Antiquarian.

With papers on the origins of the Church Monument Society, early Japanese archæology and the influence of formal garden design on William Stuckley, Antiquaries and Archaists could have been a mess of unconnected themes. Instead, it teases out shared concerns.