Twice during the past year it has been the privilege and duty of the Society to present an address to its Sovereign—once to congratulate His late Majesty, King George V, on the celebration of the Silver Jubilee of His accession, and once to express our deep sorrow at His death and our loyal prayers for the prosperity of His successor, His present Majesty King Edward VIII. I am glad now to be able to announce to you that King Edward has been graciously pleased to continue to the Society the royal patronage which it has enjoyed from His predecessors since its foundation.

Archaeologists in France have for many years recognized hand-axes of St. Acheul facies in association with flake-implements of Levallois type, which are contemporary with the mid-Pleistocene deposits of the Somme valley. Their place in the culture-sequence is after the cold period that produced the main Coombe-rock of South-East England, and the Little Eastern or Upper Chalky Boulder-clay of East Anglia. The Coombe-rock referred to overwhelmed the Levallois II factory-site at Baker's Hole, Northfleet, Kent.

In England, however, it has taken much longer to trace these mid-Pleistocene hand-axes in contemporary beds. The first was found by the late F. G. Spurrell on the classic ‘floor’ at the base of the Crayford Brickearth, though it was not until quite recently that the correct age of the Crayford series was determined. This specimen is now in the British Museum (Natural History), but is not figured in the present note.

It may be recalled that the excavation of Maiden Castle, Dorset, has been undertaken by the Society of Antiquaries and the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for two main reasons: first, because Maiden Castle is typical; and secondly, because it is at the same time exceptional or even unique. It is typical as representative in position and kind of a very large number of prehistoric fortress-towns in and about the region of Wessex, and its extensive exploration may be expected, therefore, to provide a firm basis for a further inquiry into this notable manifestation of urban development in the later prehistoric period. It is exceptional and, as to its great double entrances, unique in the scale and complexity of its defence-system; and in this respect may be regarded, not merely as the product of an era, but as the monument of some intensely individual and remarkable mind—in Thomas Hardy's words, ‘some remote mind capable of prospective reasoning to a far extent’. Indeed, the hackneyed word ‘personality’ can perhaps be applied more easily to Maiden Castle than to any of the many earthworks which in other regards have an equal claim to investigation.

The fine large church of St. Andrew, Biggleswade, in Bedfordshire, is described in the V.C.H. of that county (i, 213). In the course of last century it suffered a devastating restoration, one of the results of which was the almost total destruction of an interesting monumental brass which was lying in a large Purbeck slab in the midst of the chancel, being the memorial of a distinguished cleric who had the prebend of Biggleswade in Lincoln Cathedral. This brass had attracted the attention of Gough, who devotes a page of his second volume to illustrating it. This page is reproduced without its margin in pl. XLVIII. The margin only shows the reference at top to pl. CII, and to the page 273 of the volume, and below notes that the drawing was done by Schnebbelie and the engraving by Longmate. The slab as shown is very large, being 11½ ft by 5½ ft. Haines in part ii of his Manual (1861) describes the brass, stating that though the effigy and canopy with SS. John Baptist, Anna, Elizabeth, and Mary of Egypt were lost, yet figures of death, angels, etc., inscription in sixteen Latin verses and mutilated marginal inscription in ten Latin verses remained, and that the slab had been powdered with crescents and escallops, all lost but two. Sir A. W. Franks, in Proceedings, vi, 311, notes that the effigy was kneeling.

None of the seven objects seems to have been illustrated before. No. 1 is the earliest, and probably dates from the thirteenth century. It was found at Barnwood, on the outskirts of Gloucester, a site which has produced many prehistoric, Roman, and medieval objects. The material is latten or bronze. The plate is rectangular and bears a raised heater-shaped shield; the surface is covered with a series of minute evenly spaced bosses, presumably to hold the composition, much of which remains. Each of the bottom angles is filled with a fleur-de-lis springing from the shield, and in each of the top angles is a pair of cusps.

Mynydd Craig-goch, the westernmost height of a rocky ridge of the Snowdon mountains, slopes gently down to a watershed at the head of the Afon Dwyfach, over which run the railway and the main road from Criccieth and Portmadoc to Caernarvon. Between the ninth and tenth milestones from Caernarvon, immediately to the east of the road and thus on the lowest part of the mountain slope, there lie the remains of a most extensive primitive agricultural settlement. It is not marked on the Ordnance Survey map (6 in. 26 NE.), but was known locally, and the farm within which most of it lies bears the significant name Caerau. Its recognition as a site of great possibilities on account of its excellent state of preservation is due to Mr. W. J. Hemp, F.S.A. The settlement must originally have extended north and south for a distance of about half a mile. It may, indeed, have been contiguous with other settlements on the north and north-west, thus forming part of a large area of cultivated land, since there exists in excellent preservation a house or hut-group of the same type with at least one typical field about one mile to the west on the farm of Cefn Graianog. This point, however, cannot now be determined on account of more recent agricultural developments around the farm of Bodychain.