The Palace of Hampton Court is a building to which even the most unimaginative person cannot be indifferent. Built by one of the greatest and most splendid of English statesmen, and completed by one of the most magnificent of our kings, it has always been a royal pleasure-house, recalling rather the intimate private life of our sovereigns than their formal acts of state. In four years' time it will complete its fourth century of existence, and though much of its first splendour has long perished, it remains essentially a royal building; no one could take it for anything but a palace. This being so, its careful preservation is a matter of public interest, and needs no urging in this room, but for this very reason it has been thought well to lay before the Society an account of an important piece of work now being carried out there, namely, the excavation and repair of the moat and the stone bridge which spans it at the west or entrance front of the palace

The Object of the present communication is to bring together again three closely related items of antiquarian interest, which have got separated, and thus to recombine the parts of a long-forgotten scientific instrument of the Elizabethan Age, the invention of John Blagrave of Reading. Were any one of these three cluesto be lost, it would be impossible to reconstruct his Uranical Astrolabe.

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.

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.

The paper discusses an unsigned London made sector, a mathematical instrument which provides instrumental solutions to trigonometrical problems. The instrument is identified as being made to the design published by Sir Jonas Moore in 1673 with scales specifically intended for use in drawing ground plans for fortifications. It encapsulates the codified design rules of various seventeenth century engineers. One of the fortification scales which adopts general rules of the Count de Pagan, is attributed to Charles II. The use of the sector is explained and the Carolian design parameters compared with others. Consideration of the design work of the King's Engineer, Sir Bernard de Gomme, suggests that his Royal Master may have influenced that engineer's acceptance of Pagan's rules. Specifically de Gomme's design for Tilbury Fort is seen to follow design ratios probably attributable to Charles II and issued on a medal in 1666.

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.

The royal warrants repeatedly issued by King Edward the Third, and his two immediate successors, directed to the treasurer and chamberlains of their exchequer, De cera renovanda circa corpus regis Edwardi primi; and the total silence of all our historians, and public records, as to a similar attention having been paid to the corpse of any other of our deceased momarchs; are circumstances, that not only indicate the high veneration in which King Edward the First was held during a long series of years after his decease; but when considered, together with the strong injunctions under which, it is said, that king in his last moments laid his son, to send his heart to the Holy Land, attended by 140 knights, and to carry his remains along with the army until Scotland was reduced to obedience, gave rise to an opinion, that upon his decease a more than ordinary care was taken to preserve his body from putrefaction; and that, in subsequent times, the utmost endeavours were used for preventing its decay.

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.

A contract of 1392 between two Oxford brasiers, with an account of the ensuing dispute, provides important evidence for the organization of the medieval brasier's craft andfor technical aspects of his trade. One brasier employed another to make pots, bells and fawtys (probably faucets) for a flat payment by weight. The master-brasier provided the raw materials, comprising scrap brass on the one hand, and graycober (perhaps antimonial copper) and stelebake (probably zinc-bearing calamine ore so called from the place Stolberg) on the other. This, with newly discovered references to the importation of calamys and calamin in 1384, provides the first evidence yet found for the making of brass in England from its raw materials.

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.

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).

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 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.

Amongst the important operations which the precarious state of many parts of Hereford Cathedral required, the strengthening of the foundations of the range of Norman piers running throughout the church, from the east end of the choir to the west of the nave, was found to be absolutely necessary, not only in those parts immediately circumjacent to the main piers of the central tower, but in several other portions. This has been achieved by the excavation of the earth to the depth of nine or ten feet, and the filling up of the cavities so laid open with concrete. In the course of this process many very curious and interesting discoveries have been made, both in the architectural department and in the disclosure of ancient remains, which at some future time may not be unworthy of a more detailed account. On the present occasion I propose to confine my remarks to two objects which claim particular notice—namely, two Episcopal Rings, which were discovered in the following manner: