In the famous Order in Council of 4 April 1627, it is laid down that the ‘study of antiquities is by good experience said to be very serviceable and useful to the general good of the State and Commonwealth’, and Charles I commands that Sir Edward Dering, for whose encouragement the Order was promulgated, should have ready access to ‘all or any records rolles registers or bookes within the several offices …’. Documentary record was looked upon as the normal style and medium of archaeology, and while such studies have in no way lost their value, they tend to be more and more illustrated by research into the actual facts and productions of bygone life. Research in the form of excavation is as old as the art of plundering tombs, and in some countries, Egypt for example, only a very meagre fraction of burials has escaped rifling hands. The research of the Renaissance, particularly in Italy, was not over scrupulous in its methods, but was at least passionately concerned in preserving its discoveries. While ancient Rome was being treated as a stone quarry during the second half of the fifteenth century, scholars began to dig with enthusiasm, and gradually exposed the great mass of mutilated sculpture which adorns Rome to-day. But the sole purpose of their search was to extract the object, if possible the big classical object, and Sabba del Castiglione complained that as he could not buy good antiques he was driven to buy sculpture by Donatello.

About two hundred and fifty yards west of Harlow railway-station, in the Essex border-parish of Latton (Ordnance Survey 6-in. map, XLI, NW.), a small gravel-capped oval hill known as Stanegrove or Standing Groves rises to a height of some 20 ft. above the marshy banks of the river Stort. In 1764 and again in 1819 ‘very strong walls’ were observed here; and other foundations ‘evidently Roman’, tesserae, many other Roman relics, and a stone coffin are recorded to have been discovered in the fields extending for a mile to the north-east, more particularly during excavations for gravel within 250 yards of the mound itself. Coffins thought to be of Roman date were found also near the station when the railway was built in 1841 and were re-buried in the station-yard. Amongst the finds from the area are specially noted ‘a great number of Roman coins chiefly of Emperors from the first Claudius to Valentinian’, including ‘several silver pieces of Sabina, Faustina the Elder, and Constantinus Junior’, and a few British, of which the following are specified: (1) one with a helmeted head, with CUNOBELINA; reverse, a hog and TASCHOVANIT (sic); (2) another ‘with a head on one side; on the other a man striking upon an anvil; (3) ‘one with a star, between the rays of which are the letters VERLAMIO; reverse, an ox’. The general character of the evidence closely resembles that obtained from similar riverside gravels in many parts of south-eastern Britain, and indicates a fairly extensive and continuous occupation, perhaps not of a very high order, from later prehistoric times to the last quarter of the fourth century.

There is a popular idea that magnifying glasses are a relatively modern invention, and that consequently all antique die-sinking and gem-cutting must have been done by people with very short sight, which is equivalent to having a magnifier permanently attached to one's eyes. This idea is so prevalent that when ancient magnifying glasses are found, scholars go to the trouble of trying to find some other use to which they could be put, the favourite suggestion being that they must have been ornaments.

The Bursledon Brick Company's works are situated on rising ground north-east of the Southern Railway's branch line from Southampton to Fareham, and some 600 yards east of the tidal river Hamble, as shown on the plan (fig. 1). The geological formation is London clay; the beds have been exposed here to a depth of 40 ft, the section showing 1½ ft. of humus on an upper stratum of brownish-red clay resting on a bed of grey clay. The country immediately around supports oak, hazel, and alder.

Springhead lies in the valley of the Ebbsfleet, a small stream which joins the Thames at Northfleet, near Gravesend. At Springhead the valley is crossed by the Watling Street in its course from Rochester to Dartford, and the valley between Springhead and Northfleet contained a considerable population in Romano-British times.

In the course of the winter of 1924–25 the remains of one of the largest fourth-century Christian churches, outside of Rome, were discovered on the site of the Byzantine city of Constantia in Cyprus by the Curator of Ancient Monuments. The church belongs to the Basilican type with five aisles and four rows of columns, a type which preceded the regular Byzantine or domical plan with its thick walls and abutments. Its dimensions, exclusive of remains of attached buildings, porches, etc., are 184 ft. from east to west and 148 ft. from north to south. The central nave is 38 ft. wide and the double aisles on either side cover a width of 52 ft. in each case, and the total area under its wooden roofs was consequently over 27,000 square feet. In the centre of the eastern wall is a semicircular apse of the same width as the central nave.

The castle of Chilham stands immediately to the west of the Jacobean mansion built by Sir Dudley Digges in 1616. Traditions of remote antiquity have long been associated with the site, but the record of discoveries of Roman remains during the building of the mansion is not circumstantial, and a tunnel driven through the mound under the ancient keep by a recent owner failed to reveal any trace of Roman age. Chilham was held under Edward the Confessor by Sired and was granted by the Conqueror to Odo bishop of Bayeux. It was held, under him, by Fulbert de Dover, and on Odo's disgrace in 1084 it was granted to Fulbert in chief and became the head of his barony. The subsequent descent of the property need not detain us, as it has no bearing on the architectural history of the castle.