In the year 1825 some labourers who were employed in draining a swampy field upon a farm belonging to the Featherstone Castle estate came upon what seemed to be part of the trunk of an oak-tree. Finding that it impeded the progress of their work they endeavoured to cut it out with an axe, when to their surprise they discovered that the trunk was hollowed and contained some human bones, which, however, speedily became dust when exposed to the air. Proceeding with their work they found the remains of four more coffins of the same kind, in one of which was part of a skull.

In April last, immediately after the discovery was made, I had the pleasure to forward to the Society of Antiquaries a coloured photograph and short description of a portion of a tessellated Roman floor or pavement discovered in Burgate Street, in the city of Canterbury, and I then promised to communicate, when the operations then in progress should have been, completed, a general description of what might be further discovered, which promise I will now endeavour to redeem.

Though there are but few churches in England built on a circular plan, it has generally been supposed that most of them were built by the Jews for Synagogues; and this opinion has long prevailed at Cambridge, because the round church, a plan of which is herewith annexed, is situate in a part of the town commonly called the Jewry, in which place it is generally believed that the Jews lived together, as they formerly did in that part of London called the Old Jewry ; but as it does not appear from any good authority that the Jews ever occupied this particular part of the town, we must seek some better reason for its being called the Jewry. As the Jews were dispersed into various parts of the world soon after the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, it is probable that some of them found the way into Britain while it was subject to the Romans, though we have no certain account of their appearing here under that denomination before the time of William the Conqueror, who gave them great encouragement.

Every cultivator of our national biography and literary antiquities must rejoice at the appearance of the first volume of the Athense Cantabrigienses. That a work which was so obviously suggested nearly two centuries ago by the Athense of the sister University, which has been contemplated by so many successive collectors, and for which such large, though imperfect, accumulations have been formed, should, in spite of ever-increasing difficulties, at length greet our view in substantial paper and print, is a victory over old Time of which any generation may fairly be proud; and I therefore cannot be thought to magnify its accomplishment too highly if, on this first public allusion to the work at the Society of Antiquaries, I hail its authors as conquerors who have overtaken the spoiler, and recovered from his grasp some of his most estimable treasures.

The original object of the present communication was to present to the Fellows some account of a remarkable Book of Records preserved in the parish church of St. Stephen's, Coleman Street, containing, among other interesting particulars, the original constitution under which the parish was governed.

As, however, some other of the parish books presented features of exceptional historical interest, I have taken leave to add, by way of illustration to the paper, some particulars relating to the parish and its inhabitants, gathered from its books.

Among the remnants of interior decoration in the Roman Imperial palace at Baia are the stuccoed vaults of three rooms, the so-called ‘Stanze di Venere’, which attracted the attention of innumerable travellers and antiquaries during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The first and second rooms, respectively pavilion-vaulted and barrel-vaulted, retain enough of their stucco-work to justify a close study of design and subject-matter; while even in the third room, where only a few fragments survive, some figures and ornaments can be discerned. Further information about the decorations is supplied by unpublished drawings carried out in the early eighteenth century. Dating is difficult, but stylistic evidence suggests that the stucco-work of room 1, which belongs to the original phase of the complex, dates to Augustan times. The other two decorations are later, but no later than the Flavio-Trajanic period, for then or soon afterwards new structures were built at a higher level and the three rooms were turned into cisterns. The decorative programme in both 1 and 2 is primarily Dionysiac but also embodies references to the sports of the palaestra and to bathing, themes which lend weight to the idea that the chambers formed part of a bath-suite.

For the purpose of my paper, it will be necessary to sketch briefly the history of the kingdom and earldom of Northumbria. In 547, according to Symeon of Durham, king Ida founded the kingdom of Northumbria, at whose death it was divided into the kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira. It was governed as either one or two kingdoms, by entirely independent kings, down to the time of Egbert, king of the West Saxons, who, having brought all England south of the Humber under his rule, sent an army in 829 to Northumbria, and made Eanred, the king there, subject to him. In 867 the kingdom came under Danish rule, but king Alfred, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, received recognition of his overlordship from king Guthred the Dane in 894. This claim of overlordship by the West-Saxon kings of England was of a very precarious nature, and seems only to have been maintained by continual expeditions into the Northumbrian kingdom. In 924, Athelstan and Sihtric, king of the Northumbrians, met at Tamworth, when Athelstan gave his sister in marriage to Sihtric. Some arrangement was probably come to at this meeting as to the succession to the crown of Northumbria, for on the death of Sihtric two years later Athelstan assumed the kingdom of Northumbria. Guthred, son of Sihtric, seems to have laid some claim to the kingdom, but he does not appear to have met with much support. It must be noted here that Athelstan did not succeed Sihtric as a conqueror, but was, in all probability, elected by the Northumbrian witan.

So much has been written about the abbey church of Westminster and the historical monuments wherewith it is filled that to most people it may seem superfluous to write anything more about it. But as a matter of fact the Abbey and its church are still an architectural and archaeological mine that has really been little worked scientifically, and it is for that reason that I venture to lay before the Society of Antiquaries, which has always had a special interest in Westminster Abbey, some notes upon the funeral, the tomb or monument, and the chantry chapel of King Henry V.

I beg to call attention to a very interesting monument still preserved at Coventry. It consists of a large piece of Tapestry, 30 feet long by 10 feet high, wrought at the close of the fifteenth or beginning of the sixteenth century, and affording a singularly perfect example of the arts of design and weaving at that period. I am not aware that we possess many examples of tapestry before the sixteenth century; but specimens after the establishment of a manufactory at Mortlake, under Sir Francis Crane, seem to have become very numerous, chiefly, however, of Scripture-historical and allegorical compositions. The greater part of these are of the French school; although, in accordance with the wish of King Charles I., several sets of tapestries from Raphael's Cartoons, which are now at Hampton Court, were executed at that manufactory.

Having a very strong personal objection to the system of seat-reservation and appropriation in church, I naturally looked forward with considerable satisfaction to reading the pamphlets and works on the subject which I was told would convince me of the antiquity of the “free and open” system, and that “appropriation” and “reservation” were innovations of a comparatively-speaking recent date.

In the summer of 1907, during the construction of a new road (called South Cliff Parade) situated on top of the cliffs, at a distance of about 40 yards from the sea, between Dumpton Gap and East Cliff Lodge, there was found a number of V-shaped trenches cut in the chalk subsoil, and running transversely across the site of the road. They came into view as soon as the loamy soil, which was about 12 inches in depth, was removed from the surface of the ground. Prior to the construction of the road the land had been in cultivation, and there was no evidence whatever on the surface, in the shape of mounds or depressions, to indicate the presence of any earthworks beneath. The new road above referred to begins at Dumpton Gap, and proceeds in a southerly direction for about 600 yards. (Plate LV.) It is slightly undulating, and rises to a height of about 100 feet above sea level at its highest point, while the land gently slopes towards the sea from west to east. At about 150 yards from the starting point there was found the first indication of the ground having been previously excavated, and here was met with what appears to be the fosse which surrounded the prehistoric village. It ran in a diagonal direction from south-west to north-east, across the line of the new road in course of construction. It was 22 feet wide, about 4 feet 6 inches deep, and had been excavated in the chalk.

The investigation described in the following paper may perhaps throw some light on the nature of those remarkable sepulchral mounds, known as “long barrows,” which as yet remain the crux and problem of the barrow-digger and archæologist. Many of the long barrows of South Wiltshire were examined at the beginning of this century by Mr. Cunnington and Sir Richard Colt Hoare; but with so little return for the pains bestowed on them, that, though Sir Richard was satisfied of their high antiquity, he was utterly at a loss to determine the purpose for which such immense mounds had been raised. In another part of his “Ancient Wiltshire,” he tells us that he and his colleague “had at length given up all researches in them, having for many years in vain looked for that information which might tend to throw some satisfactory light on their history.” In the various long barrows which were opened by these investigators, we find that, with very few exceptions, human skeletons were discovered on the floor of the barrow, at the broad, or east end, “lying in a confused and irregular manner, and generally covered with a pile of stones or flints.” The total absence of bronze weapons, of all personal ornaments, and of urns of pottery, such as were constantly found by them in the circular barrows of the same district, is repeatedly noticed by Sir Richard Hoare, who observes that “their original purport is still involved in obscurity, and a further explanation of them would be a great desideratum.”

Plate IX. Fig. 1. A burial urn of glass, found about twenty-five years since, in a field called Kingsmead, about half a mile distant from Cirencester; it was wrapped in lead, and deposited in a stone hollowed out to receive it; it is of a greenish colour, not very transparent, but well-moulded, having several raised circles on its bottom, quite smooth, without any appearance of having ever been fastened to a blowing iron as all modern glass vessels are in the making, which have therefore a rough mark at the bottom, unless they have been afterwards ground smooth. Its diameter at the top is five inches and three eighths, height ten inches and one eighth, and width at the bottom five inches and five eighths. It is in the possesion of C. H. Parry, M. D. of Bath.

The excavations of 1908 began on 15th June, and were continued until 6th November, under the direction of Messrs. Ashby, Hudd, and Jones, assisted by Mr. F. King as architect.

During the summer months of the last ten years, I have been engaged in excavating the site, and tracing the walls and dimensions of the Abbey Church of Evesham, which was destroyed at the Dissolution of the Monasteries by King Henry VIIIth. no traces of which were visible above the surface of the ground. A regular Ground Plan and Survey of the Buildings is made, which, when completed, will be laid before the Society.

Having received, from the Reverend Dr. Griffith, Rector of St. Mary Hill, the inclosed account of a curious discovery lately made at Colchester, I take the liberty to trouble you with it; that, is you esteem it at all worthy the attention of the Society, you may communicate it to them. I will only just take the liberty to add, that, in pulling down the old tower of the church at Mold, in North Wales, last year, a great quantity of grain was found buried under its foundations, in like manner; and that probably it was deposited in both places, in consequence of some ancient superstitious custom.