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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 July 2012
As the Workmen (May 4, 1756) were digging up part of the old Foundation of the Black Swan Inn, in Holborn, they met with a stone, which was strongly cemented with bricks, chalk, and other stones, like those they call ragg stones, that it was with great difficulty the pick-ax could make any impression or separate them. This stone was at the bottom of a great pile of this rubbish, if I may so call it, and was about eighteen inches long, but accidentally broke in the middle by some blow of the pick-ax, nine inches broad, and four inches thick, and thereon now stand these Arabic numerals cut into the stone, in the form and manner here described, as near as I could imitate the same; some of which are about one inch ¾, and some about two inches tall; and under them there are the Roman numerals xii, the meaning of which I will not at present even guess at.
page 149 note [a] It is of the Surry Free-stone, of which there are many quarries at Reygate, Bletchingly, Godstone, &c. which latter place derives its name Godstone, i. e. Goodstone, from it, for its ancient name was Walkenested, The nature of this stone is such, that it does not bear the injuries of the weather, and therefore is unfit for building; but, when placed where not exposed, is extremely durable; and so greatly resists fire, that bottoms of ovens, furnaces, &c. are built with it. Some of the quarries are very spacious, and of great Antiquity. If it should hereafter appear, that these are the numerals, and this the date when the house was built, it will bid fair for our receiving them from our people at their return from the holy war, when they had learned them from the Saracens. Jos. Ames.