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to its present sacred purpose. In the refectory on the ground floor have been gathered together many of the relics found in the abbey, including a canopied niche formerly placed over the arch of the gatehouse, the grave slab of Eleana, daughter of Edward I., and a collection of the tiles, inlaid and encaustic, formerly covering the floor of the abbey. A large number of the tiles, as Mr. Nash-Brown mentioned, are still in place, but covered by two or three feet of earth.

By permission of Lord Montagu, the party were allowed to go over his beautiful residence, a portion of which was formerly the Abbot's house.

On leaving the house Captain ELWES, on behalf of the Club, expressed their appreciation of Lord Montagu's kindness, and thanked Mr. Morgan and Mr. Nash-Brown for their good offices.

A pleasant drive back to Brockenhurst was followed by tea at the Morant Arms.

BUSINESS MEETING.

Afterwards a short business meeting was held, at which four new Members were elected.

The HON. SEC. announced six new nominations for membership. Sir Daniel Morris, of Bournemouth, was appointed as the club's delegate to attend the meeting of the British Association at Dundee.

The meeting proceeded to consider the proposal of Captain Acland that the volume of Proceedings should in future be brought out, not at the end of the year, but immediately after the annual meeting in May. As this proposed change would involve the publication of an interim volume to adjust matters, it might be necessary to meet the extra expense by drawing upon the reserve fund of the Club.

On the motion of the Rev. C. W. H. DICKER, seconded by the Rev. T. RUSSELL WRIGHT, the proposal, after full discussion, was carried

nem. con.

SECOND SUMMER MEETING.

MARLBOROUGH.

Tuesday and Wednesday, 23rd and 24th July.

On this occasion about sixty Members and visitors accompanied the President on a very successful pilgrimage extending over two days.

Shortly after assembling at the Ailesbury Arms on the Tuesday the party visited St. Peter's Church, at the further end of the wide High Street.

Mr. E. DORAN WEBB, F.S.A., of whose services as guide the club again had the advantage, said a few words in the church about the history of the town, and of the tumulus known as the Castle Mound. He also touched upon the incidents connected with St. Peter's in early times, remarking that Cardinal Wolsey was ordained in the Chancel in 1494.

THE SCHOOL.

From the church Mr. Doran Webb, by leave of the Headmaster, led the party over the School, which was founded in 1843, with the charming old Castle Inn as the nucleus of the modern buildings which have been erected round it.

AVEBURY CHURCH,

a place of exceptional interest, was next visited. As Mr. Doran Webb pointed out, the church was subjected to severe mutilation in the 18th Century, when the early Norman arches were replaced by the present modern work. Attention was called to the three small circular windows in the wall of the north arcade, windows which Mr. Charles E. Ponting, F.S.A., regarded as being Saxon. But the great rarity of the church is the font. The upper part, with its quaint interweaving symbolical design, is of quite a different date from the lower part, adorned with Norman arcading formed of intersecting arches. The most noticeable object of the upper and the much older half is a priestly figure wearing a kind of quilted frock, its face quite disfigured by the driving in of a staple, and holding in the right hand a crozier-like staff. Mr. Doran Webb said he knew of no font with so distinctive and strong a Scandinavian feeling in the design and adornment, and Dr. COLLEY MARCH, F.S.A., agreed with him that the upper part was Scandinavian.

Mr. H. ST. GEORGE GRAY, assistant secretary of the Somerset Archæological Society, and the director of the excavations at Avebury,

had come with the party as guide in this unique village, which has sprung up within the stone circle of the prehistoric temple. On the club leaving the church he led them to see the manor house of the 16th Century, built by one Dunch in 1556, and told the family history connected with it.

THE TEMPLE OF AVEBURY.

THE EXCAVATIONS.

Afterwards the

Tea at the Red Lion was a welcome refreshment. party set out to walk round the earthwork. Mr. Gray led them along the huge vallum to a convenient spot overlooking the section of the fosse in which the excavations were carried out from 1908 onwards.

Mr. GRAY delivered a concise address, giving first a general description of Avebury, and then detailing the course of the excavations. The circumference of the place, he said was about 4,400 feet, roughly three-quarters of a mile, and its diameter from north to south 1,400 feet-four times that of Stonehenge. The stones, while none of them were quite so large as at Stonehenge, differed also in being rough untooled sarsens, whereas at Stonehenge all the stones were dressed, and other hard stones were to be found besides sarsens. That great embankment, of a vertical height of 31 feet, enclosed an area of 28 acres and a half. They would notice a rather unusual thing-that the fosse was inside the vallum instead of outside. Next, lying just inside the foss, were the remaining stones of the great outer circle, which enclosed two other circles of stones, the northern and the southern. He pointed to five stones (two still upright and three prone) forming an arc of the southern inner circle, in the centre of which, in Stukeley's time, was one large monolith. In the centre of the corresponding northern inner circle was the so-called Cove," formed of three stones, of which two were still standing, roughly at right angles, one of the stones being 20 feet high, the tallest of those remaining. Although Lord Avebury, the owner of the part of the work in which the excavations had as yet been carried out, held the opinion that the whole place was one vast cemetery, yet he himself could not admit that it was ever used for sepulchral purposes, since, as far as he knew, no interment had been found there. What, then, was the purpose of the place? Nobody knew. It could not have been for defence, for in that case the fosse would have been outside the vallum instead of inside. He had heard suggestions that it might have been a temple in connection with the observation of the sun, moon, and stars, which seemed probable. There was originally a long avenue of stones approaching Avebury from the south, and by the turnpike cottage they saw the last stone. Of this Kennet-avenue only 19 stones remained; but a hundred years ago Lord Winchilsea counted no less

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than 78, and at one time there were 200. As to the so-called Beckhampton-avenue, coming from the West, to his mind it was doubtful whether an avenue ever existed in the direction of Beckhampton; but, if so, all that remained now were two large stones, in a field nearly a mile away, called Adam and Eve, Longstone Cove, or the Devil's Points. On December 2nd last Eve" fell. Effort was being made to set the stone up again; but already they had broken several steel ropes in the attempt. Mr. Cunnington, of Devizes, had been digging out the hole to find the socket in the solid chalk, and in doing so had discovered a human skeleton and a beaker, or drinking vessel, datable to the Bronze Age.

Dr. COLLEY MARCH said that, as the interment was close to the stone and shallow, it must have been placed there after the stone was raised. Had it been put there before the stone was raised it would have been ground to pieces. He suggested that the interment was made at that spot because it was sacred, and people wished to bury their dead in or near some sacred place. As to date, the avenue was there before the early Bronze Age.

(Also, cf. Proceedings, Vol. XXX., p. lxiv.)

SILBURY.

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From Avebury the Club drove back to Marlborough via Adam and Eve" and Silbury Hill, which has the distinction of being the highest artificial mound in Britain.

It

Mr. GRAY gave all the information known about the tumulus. is 125 feet high from the surface of the ground; the diameter of the base is 555 feet, and at the top 105 feet. The material was believed to have been obtained from all round the base of the hill. In hollows which he pointed out there are five feet of alluvial deposit, showing that originally the hollows were very much larger; and in that deposit had been found flint implements of the Neolithic period. The depression in the centre of the summit marked the position of the vertical shaft which was sunk in 1777, and although it reached the very bottom of the hill, nothing was found. In 1840 the Royal Archæological Institute followed suit by doing the complementary work of tunneling the hill from the Bath-road side to the centre; and in doing so they met the shaft. Again nothing was found except two fragments of red deer antlers. There is, therefore, no proof that Silbury was sepulchral.

EVENING PROCEEDINGS.

On regaining Marlborough the Club visited the church of St. Mary, which was shown them by the Vicar (the Rev. A. E. G. Peters). It is an interesting if unlovely example of a church built in the Commonwealth period. The old church having been almost entirely burnt

down in the great fire of 1653, Cromwell sent briefs through the country asking for contributions towards the succour of the poor burghers of Marlborough, who thus were enabled to rebuild their church in the same The best feature of the church is the Norman archway of two orders in the western tower, which happily survived the fire.

year.

The Club dined at the Ailesbury Arms, the President (Mr. Richardson) being supported by a large company.

Afterwards six new Members were elected by ballot, and the Hon. SECRETARY announced three new nominations.

The party then adjourned to the Court Room at the Town Hall, where Mr. ST. GEORGE GRAY followed up the visit to Avebury that day by giving a lecture on the place and the excavations, illustrated by a series of lantern slides, made from photographs taken by himself. Speaking with cautious reserve, in answer to the question so repeatedly put as to the date of the place, Mr. Gray observed that, so far, the evidence adduced pointed to it being either of the early Bronze Age or the late Neolithic, and, if so, of greater antiquity than the better known and more spectacular Stonehenge.

SECOND DAY.

Wednesday.

KNOWLE CHAPEL AND GRAVEL PITS.

The parish of Great Bedwyn contains this desecrated chapel, 19ft. 6in. by 12ft. 9in., the chief feature of which is the 14th Century windows, now bricked up. It was, said Mr. DORAN WEBB, one of a series

of domestic chapels in that neighbourhood.

Dr. COLLEY MARCH then described many points of interest in connection with the gravel pit adjoining Knowle House, a spot often visited by those in search of flint implements.

FROXFIELD ALMSHOUSES.

Shortly afterwards the party were standing inside a large quadrangle of two-storeyed tenements in the mellowed brickwork of the 17th Century. In the centre of the sward rose an early 19th century chapel, an architectural anachronism. This quadrangle forms the Froxfield Almshouses, as they are now generally called, or the Somerset Hospital, founded and endowed for the benefit of 50 widows (20 of the clergy and 30 of laymen) by Sarah, Dowager Duchess of Somerset, in 1694.

Mr. DORAN WEBB pointed out the oldest tenements, late Caroline or James II., the gatehouse and the chapel being built in what is known as the Batty Langley" style.

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The Duchess of Somerset also founded a system of apprenticeship available for youths in the counties of Wilts, Dorset, Somerset, and

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