A small but interesting find of Roman coins was made recently by Mr. Stuart Piggott during his examination of the site at Rams Hill, near Uffington, described in the preceding paper; and I may here recapitulate his description of the discovery. Two adult skeletons were found, buried one above the other, in a ditch which appeared to belong to an enclosure of the Ditchley–Wootton–Fawler–Kiddington type, and of which three sides were defined, suggesting a square 260 ft. across. There had evidently been occupation within this (although a trench encountered no foundations)—probably a wooden building on analogy with Ditchley; and the pottery in the ditch was first-century, with abundant Belgic types. Into the filling of this ditch, or rather in a cleared-out portion of it (since no grave dug through the filling could be detected in the section), the two burials had been deposited, the upper on his back with no grave-goods, the lower on his left side with the coins. Two coins, one silver and one bronze, were enclosed between two thin silver-foil discs folded over each other in the mouth; the other coins (seven) were all together in a compact mass high up against the ribs, a fact which suggests the previous existence of a bag or purse slung round the neck. Thus there is no doubt of the strict contemporaneity of the whole group. There was nothing else to suggest late Roman occupation of the site.

The two forfeitures here described have no more certain connexion than that they both took place in the same year, and that the chief documents for both now lie together in the same file. The first has to do with the property of Henry le Scrope, who was the prime mover in the plot against Henry Vand was executed at Southampton on 5th August 1415. The second has to do with Richard Gurmyn, a Lollard who was burnt at Smithfield for heresy on 9th September in the same year. It is possible that the Lollard leader, Sir John Oldcastle, was privy to Scrope's plot, and it is not impossible that Gurmyn's execution was in part political; but even if Gurmyn was in any way concerned in Scrope's plot, the connexion between the forfeitures is purely accidental.

The generosity of an anonymous benefactor to the Research Fund of the Society enabled further work to be carried out in 1927 on the Findon Park Iron Age village site, which is situated just above the 500-ft. contour on a broad flat southward-sloping ridge one mile to the north of Cissbury. We wished to obtain information as to the range of date of the occupation, and the culture of the inhabitants, additional to that reported in Archaeologia, Ixxvi.

Intensive recent field-work in the Upper Nene valley has located many new kiln sites. Twenty, in an area about eight miles by six, are surveyed in this paper, and their products studied and illustrated; distribution of the products is shown, provisionally, to be purely local. A group of kilns excavated in 1962 at Ecton is reported on in full. Four updraught kilns of varying forms fired the work of at least two potters in the second and third centuries A.D. ; this included flagons and mortaria. The industry locally dates from the mid first century A.D. and flourished into the second; a recession in the third century was apparently followed by complete breakdown in the fourth. This perhaps reflects competition from potteries of the Lower Nene around Castor, as occupation of domestic sites continued unabated.

The uncovering the ruins of Wymondham Abbey having been proceeded in to the extent originally proposed by the parish authorities, I now beg to lay before you the results; and, should the notice contain matter of sufficient interest to warrant your laying it before the Society of Antiquaries, I shall feel much honoured by your doing so.

The drawing, (Pl. VII.) is a correct plan of the Roman Encampment near East Hempstead in Berkshire as it now stands. Its situation, at one extremity of a large plateau, rendered it very fit for a permanent military station, as it must have been of difficult access on every side except that by which it is connected with the principal hill.

As you are so distinguished a player at Chess, what I have lately gleaned with regard to the introduction of this most capital game into Europe cannot but be interesting to you.

In the choir aisles of the Cathedral Church of Wells there is a series of recumbent effigies of Saxon bishops, which have not received the attention they deserve. Solemn figures, boldly sculptured, with a rich variety of dress and pose, they are the equals in grace and dignity of the famous statues on the west front. They are far better preserved, for they have not been worn by the weather, and apart from some accidental breakages they are in excellent condition. If they do not come from the great sculptors who wrought the figures outside, they are the work of their fathers before them, and they have something to tell us of the development of English carving in the west. Not less interesting than their art i s the history of the successive changes of name and of position which they have undergone in the course of seven centuries.

If the principles of Gothic architecture are now but little known, the various styles of building, which come under the denomination of Gothic, are pretty well ascertained; and as the first, if well understood and properly applied, would be useful to modern professors of architecture; so the latter may be usefully applied by the lovers of antiquities, to illustrate or correct the different historical accounts which antient writers have left us of many elegant structures which once adorned this kingdom, some of which yet remain, to perpetuate the piety of their founders, and the magnificence of the ages in which they were built; and, notwithstanding the ravages of time, or the depredations of rebellion and fanatic rage, still convey to the curious inspector a just idea of the merits and abilities of that ingenious fraternity who have been long distinguished by the name of Free-Masons.

This Society published in vol. lxxii of Archaeologia an illustrated description of the almost complete series of the seals of the bishops of Durham, from William of St. Calais (1081) to Cuthbert Tunstall (1559), preserved in the treasury of the dean and chapter of Durham. This paper with the ensuing catalogue is an attempt to record the seals of later date belonging to the see and to the cathedral church of Durham, up to the abolition of what remained of the palatinate powers of the bishops in 1836. The writer thought that this would be a comparatively easy task but it has not been so, for after an exhaustive search in all likely places, the result has been disappointing; examples have been difficult to find, some of the bishops are not represented at all and others only by their great seals in chancery. The only examples of episcopal seals of dignity which have been found later than that of Barnes (pi. xiv, no. 2) are that of Cosin (pi. xvi, no. 3) and those of Trevor, Egerton, and Barrington (pi. xvii).

During my last excursion to France I had the good fortune to preserve some original charters relative to the Priory of Trulegh in Kent, which was a Cell to the Abbey of St. Bertin at St. Omer, in France, of which Priory very little has been discovered either by Dugdale, Tanner, or the Editors of the New Monasticon.

A textile fragment from the Crimea acquired by the British Museum in 1848 is identified as a Han Chinese monochrome figured silk. Pieces of the same cloth are also in the Hermitage, Leningrad. The context of the find and the associated grave furniture are re-examined and a production date for the silk within the first century B.C. or early first century A.D. is proposed.

The ingenious author of an 8vo volume just published, under the title of “the Parian Chronicle,” has with much learning and diligence suggested his doubts, concerning the authenticity of that monument which the University of Oxford places at the head of her Collection of Marbles, having shewn it that respect ever since by the liberality of one of the noble family of Howard she became possest of that valuable Collection ; the first which this country could boast for near a century, till the munificence and taste of a private individual formed one equal to it in the capital.

The remarkable Monument of antiquity which gives its name to the Vale of White Horse in Berkshire, has not, I believe, attracted the particular attention of any antiquary since 1738, when the Rev. Francis Wise published his “Letter to Dr. Mead, concerning some Antiquities in Berkshire,” &c.; or, perhaps I should rather say, since 1742, the date of his second work upon the subject, entitled “Further Observations upon the White Horse and other Antiquities in Berkshire,” &c.

The following paper collects and puts together some scattered historic traces of the architecture used in the transalpine parts of Europe, in order from thence to suggest a line of inquiry after the origin of that particular species of it, called the Gothick; and also after the institution of that Collegium or corporation of Free-masons, whom I conceive to have been the first formers of this architecture into a regular and scientifick order, by applying the models and proportions of timber frame-work to building Stone.