When, in the spring of 1882, the First Commissioner of Works announced his intention of proceeding to destroy the old law courts at Westminster, it seemed to me that it became necessary for every person interested in antiquities—and particularly in the antiquities of London—to watch with interest the result of this destruction, and in consequence I obtained permission from the Chief Commissioner to visit the place myself, and also to take with me two friends—Fellows of the Society. I selected for this purpose my friends Mr. Micklethwaite and Mr. Somers Clarke. I should like to say something personal to myself, however, to explain why I thought I was for many reasons a proper person to watch these buildings. My grandfathers upon both my father's and mother's side, my father and myself, have been attorneys of the Court of King's and Queen's Bench at Westminster for a period stretching over very nearly one hundred years, and as the law courts at Westminster were built somewhere about the year 1812, we have collectively seen them built and destroyed.

The Priory of St. Andrew, at Hamble, near Southampton, was a cell to the Benedictine abbey of Tyrone (Tirun or Turun), in La Beauce, a district southwest of Chartres, included in the old province of Orléannois. In the Monasticon and Tanner's Notitia it is called a Cistercian abbey, but this is a mistake, and so is the statement in the Notitia that the priory was annexed to New College, Oxford. The priory stood on a “rise” or point of land.—“Hamele-en-le-rys” or “Hamblerice” is its old name—at the confluence of the Hamble river with southampton Water, opposite Calshot castle. Hamble gets its name from Hamele, a thane of the Saxon Meonwaris. Leland calls the place “Hamel Hooke.” The priory church of St. Andrew is now the parish church. It was rebuilt by winchester college in the early part of the fifteenth century, and consists of channel and nave, to which a south aisle was added five or six years ago, and a tower with three bells. There are scarcely any traces above ground of the priory buildings. Like those of the Benedictine convent of St. Swithun, at Winchester, they stood on the south and south-west of the church, so that the graveyard, as at Winchester, is on the north side of the church.

The demolition of the law courts on the west side of Westminster Hall, and the consequent exposure of all that is left of the ancient work there, are my excuse for bringing forward now a matter which by itself would scarcely deserve to be made the subject of a communication to the Society. For I have not to tell of any great discovery, but to comment upon evidence which exists for the most part only in the shape of drawings of work now destroyed.

Some years have now elapsed since any paper has been read before this Society upon Silchester, which is without doubt the most interesting Roman city in this country. Comparatively speaking, very little has been done there since the death of the Rev. James Gerald Joyce, F.S.A., the rector of Stratfieldsaye, whose elaborate and valuable papers upon Silchester, amply illustrated with plans and drawings, published in vols. xl. and xlvi. of Archaeologia, are well known to you all. Had it not been for him we should probably have remained in ignorance of the existence of the city, as it was he who inspired the late Duke of Wellington with such a keen interest in the place that he authorised excavations to be undertaken.

The accompanying plates are copies of two fresh subjects in the series of mural paintings lately discovered on the clerestory-walls of All Saints church, Friskney. Four of this series have been already described in the Archaeologia, viz., the Assumption, the Stable at Bethlehem, the Last Supper, and the Gathering of the Manna; the copies before us of the newly-found pictures represent (I) the Ascension, and (II) the Resurrection.

In this paper I hardly venture to go beyond the statement of notes made upon the site by the permission of the Chief Commissioner of Works; and a comparison therewith of such plans, drawings, or other sources of information as I could obtain access to. The information I have been able to get together has made it clear that there is yet more to be got; indeed, the evidence to be afforded by the building itself and the ground to be excavated about it has not yet been exhausted.

I beg to invite the attention of the Society of Antiquaries to the occurrence of human figures sculptured on stones at Checkley and Ilam, in Staffordshire, the bodies being represented as formed entirely of interlacing bands, and producing the effect of wickerwork images. As far as I know, attention has not hitherto been called to this remarkable and suggestive feature, which seems to throw us far back into the past, and reminds us of the earliest descriptions of the land of Britain.

The original object of the present communication was to present to the Fellows some account of a remarkable Book of Records preserved in the parish church of St. Stephen's, Coleman Street, containing, among other interesting particulars, the original constitution under which the parish was governed.

As, however, some other of the parish books presented features of exceptional historical interest, I have taken leave to add, by way of illustration to the paper, some particulars relating to the parish and its inhabitants, gathered from its books.

I venture to think that bishop Reginald Fitzjocelin deserves a place of higher honour in the history of the diocese, and of the fabric of the church of Wells, than has hitherto been accorded to him.

His memory has been obscured by the traditionary fame of bishop Robert as the “author,” and of bishop Jocelin as the “finisher,” of the church of Wells; and the importance of his episcopate as a connecting link in the work of these two master-builders has been comparatively overlooked.

The following brief observations have reference to a remarkable discovery that has very recently been made by Sir John Savile Lumley, Her Britannic Majesty's Ambassador at Rome, near the lake of Nemi. The excavations which he has carried on at that spot simultaneously with those at Cività, La Vigna,—about which you have lately had a paper submitted to you,—have apparently resulted in the identification of the site of the Artemisium—the shrine of Diana Aricina.

Though the parish church of Deerhurst is well known to archæologists as being one of the most important existing examples of a pre-Norman building in England, yet it was not suspected till last September that the same parish contained another specimen of what it is convenient to call Saxon architecture, which, though small, is in some respects more perfect than the parish church.

In the month of April, 1886, during the excavation of a pit at the Brigg gas-works, a most interesting boat, of a very primitive type, was found. The upper edges of the sides were first bared; and, as these differed from the “car wood” or buried trees which are so often found in the neighbourhood, the workmen fortunately made a further examination, instead of chopping up the timber to remove it piecemeal. It was then seen to be a boat, in a very fair state of preservation.

The diptych I exhibit before our Society belongs to our Fellow Mr. Walter Metcalfe, who bought it some twenty years back at Phillipps's sale rooms in Bond Street. After hanging the diptych up in the hall of his house in the country, Mr. Metcalfe gave the picture to a parish church in Essex; but it was not admired, and a new organ, with smart pipes, was erected in front of it. Mr. Metcalfe, therefore, at my suggestion, asked to have the diptych returned to him. After some delay, and certain forms gone through, this request was complied with.

Bottesford is a small village in the parts of Lindsey and wapentake of Manley, in the county of Lincoln. The parish before recent alterations consisted of the townships of Bottesford, Ashby, Burringham, Holme, and Yaddlethorpe, and of about half of East Butterwick. The manor of Bottesford extends over the greater part of Bottesford and Yaddlethorpe, and over the whole of that part of East Butterwick that is in Bottesford parish. Except in the case of East Butterwick the boundaries of the townships and the manor are not quite the same. There is a farm in Bottesford and another in Yaddlethorpe that are members of the great manor of Kirton in Lindsey, and on the other hand there were outlying portions of the manor of Bottesford in Brumby, Ashby, Messingham, and other places.

The town of Aylesbury is associated with the early history of this country. Green, in his volume on The Malting of England, points to this as one of the four British towns to which a region was subject, that held out against the Saxon invader.

In the latter part of November in the past year I heard that in the course of operations consequent upon the widening of a portion of the Grantham, Sleaford, and Boston Railway, there had been several discoveries of human remains, accompanied by beads, fibulae, pottery, and spears. I was therefore led to ask permission to make a systematic exploration of the locality. Through the kind favour of the Marquis of Bristol, the owner of the property, of his kinsman and representative, R. H. Hervey, Esq., and by the courtesy of the tenant, J. H. Marston, Esq., I was enabled to carry out what I believe to be an exhaustive examination.

On the 20th November, 1880, I had the honour of exhibiting to the Society at their meeting the diamond signet, engraved by order of King Charles I., with “ore Armes” and with the “tres of the name of or deerest Consort the Queene on each side,” and of reading some descriptive and other notes on this interesting historical relic.

I never consider my holiday well spent if I am not able to bring back from it something of interest to tell the Society.

I am afraid what I have to tell upon this occasion is very poor, but I hope at a future time to improve upon it.

I had so often passed Bari and the towns on the eastern coast of Italy that I was glad of the opportunity (being obliged to leave England late) of visiting this district.

The remarkable seal to which I have the pleasure of directing the attention of our Society this evening is one of several which were made for the use of certain art-loving cardinals during the earlier half of the sixteenth century, and which were the workmanship of at least two of the skilful goldsmiths of that prolific artistic period.

In the north-west of Wilts is a district which contains some remarkable reminiscences of the two dominant races who have influenced the history of this country. In tracing out the history of this district, as it has come down to us by the traditions and records of early chronicle writers, we arrive at an important epoch when for the first time is brought into strongly marked prominence the outline of the community which had settled there. This community, known to us later under the local name of Malmesbury, is one of the most perfect types of the primitive village which has survived in England, and to the elucidation of its chief characteristics it is proposed to devote some little attention. Keeping before us the outline made known from early records we shall see how this is gradually filled in from facts, which though gleaned from later and modern records, are nevertheless stamped as belonging to the earliest stages of history. And when this local mosaic is completely pieced in we shall be able, I think, to satisfy ourselves that what has so persistently clung to locality in later days originally belonged to a social group, types of which are still to be found in Eastern Europe and India, where society is in a state of arrested progress and has not advanced along the lines which mark its development in Western Europe.