date very large, and he was also now contemplating the opening of a London office in connection with his Salisbury Bank.

The political situation was, moreover, one which at this time made great demands upon the press, and Collins's position as proprietor of The Salisbury and Winchester Journal must have been in itself sufficiently arduous and exacting. Abroad, the progress of the Revolution in France was of absorbing interest, especially after January and February, 1793,1 when the Republic formally declared war on England, having first "thrown down as its gage of battle the head of a king." At home, Revolution principles were speading dangerously, and Associations for the "Defence of the government and the constitution," for the "Protection of property" and so forth, were constantly being formed, all demanding full publicity and the printing of long lists of signatories in the local paper.

The continuation of leisurely literary work was at this date an absolute impossibility for a man of so many activities. And it is characteristic of B. C. Collins's sound business and journalistic sense that he brought his literary venture to an end while it was still a popular and widely-circulated publication, and did not wait for public interest in it to wane with the development of the tremendous war on which the country was just entering.

The Western County Magazine thus maintains throughout its seven volumes the same general level of efficiency and interest. It deserves remembrance as a happy example of successful miscellany making in the eighteenth century, but still more as the pioneer Wiltshire magazine to devote itself deliberately to matters of local and archæological interest. And it is not perhaps too much to claim that it is, in this unique attention to provincial and antiquarian subjects, the spiritual if not the lineal ancestor of the present Wiltshire Archæological and Natural History Magazine.

In making the above study of early South Wilts periodical

1 The Western County Magazine issued at the beginning of the month following date of publication, so that the terrible events of January, 1793, were just taking place when the number for December, 1792, appeared.

publications, the writer has been greatly indebted to the kindness of the following:-to the Countess of Radnor for access to The Detector; to Mr. W. E. Bennett for access to The Salisbury Post Man, and to the files of The Salisbury and Winchester Journal; to Mr. Charles Haskins for help in consulting the Salisbury Corporation rate-books; to Miss Georgina Taylor of Bristol, and to the authorities at the British Museum (particularly to Mr. Daniel Baxter), at Stationers' Hall, the Bristol Public Library, Exeter Public Library, Library of the Devon and Exeter Literary Institution, Blackmore Museum at Salisbury, Reference Library at Bath, and Library of the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution, for opportunities of consulting early Farley newspapers and other material bearing on the career of Samuel Farley; to Mr. Charles Wells of the Bristol Times and Mirror for valuable information about the Farleys and for reading through The Salisbury Post Man portion of the manuscript; and to many friends and correspondents interested in local history and in the development of the early provincial press for helpful suggestions and criticisms.

[To be continued].

Correction.

In the account of The Marlborough Times, now the Wilts, Berks, and Hants County Paper, it was stated on p. 136 that the price was raised in March, 1918, from 13d. to 2d, and that the number of pages was reduced during the War from six to four. Mr. H. G. Perkins has called attention to the fact that the price remained at 11⁄2d., and that although the number of pages was reduced to four it very shortly reverted to six again. ED.

NOTES.

Plans of Wiltshire Earthworks. Between the years 1901

and 1909, the Rev. Edward A. Downman, of Laindon, Essex, executed for the Society, at a cost of from 1s. 6d. to 2s. each, a series of seventy beautifully-drawn plans of all the principal earthworks in Wiltshire, exclusive of the ditches and barrows. Each of these plans is on a separate sheet, 15 in. × 11in., or in a few cases, double this size, and they are now arranged loose in a portfolio in alphabetical order amongst the Society's collection of Drawings and Prints. They are drawn to a uniform scale of 25 inches to the mile-based on the Ordnance Survey, corrected after personal examination by Mr. Downman. Mr. Downman executed a duplicate set of these plans for the London Guildhall Library. He has also planned a very large number of other earthworks in all parts of England. On each sheet various details as to the particular earthwork are noted; its site and defensive capabilities, sections of the work, entrances, present condition, other works in the neighbourhood, &c., &c. In addition there is a short general account of the Earthworks of the county and the classes into which they fall. The author without hesitation places Silbury as well as Marlborough Castle Mound amongst the Norman works erected after 1066 A.D., an opinion it will be remembered which has been strongly urged by Sir William St. John Hope more recently. The list of Norman works or "Mote Castles" in Wiltshire, given by Mr. Downman, is as follows:Norwood, Bincknoll, Old Sarum, Stapleford, Silbury, Sherrington, Marlborough, West Dean, Devizes, Downton, Ludgershall, Mere, Clack, Castle Combe. To these might perhaps be added Great Somerford Mound, not mentioned by Mr. Downman.

Earthworks of Wiltshire. MS. Plans by E. A. Downman, 1901

Romano-British Interments at Broad Town. One of the large volumes of Canon Jackson's notes on Wiltshire Parishesthat lettered on the outside "Wanborough-Wyley," now in the Library of the Society of Antiquaries, contains a copy of a letter from Broad Town, which seems worth recording. The writer was a young man, grandson of a retired incumbent of Broad Town :

"Having received Information that a skeleton had been found on the Down by some labourers I examined the spot. About 200 yds. from the road I found the skeleton of a person of about 20 years of age-bones small-I think a female. The men in digging broke the skull and also a small funeral urn. This skeleton was not more than 2 feet from the surface and was covered with a sarsen stone about 3ft. thick and 4ft. long. I have got great part of the skeleton and fragments of the pottery. With the help of a ploughman and his horses I removed another sarsen stone under which I found the remains of another skeleton and to my great joy I found a coin in perfect preservation of Antoninus Pius, I believe. It soon found its way into my pocket, the ploughman observing '0 Sir, you have worked very hard to take home only a penny.'

Wm. Randall Farley, Broad Town, Wootton Bassett, Oct. 5th, 1859." The coin referred to was pronounced by J. Y. Akerman to be of Marcus Aurelius. Canon Jackson appends notes of a subsequent letter of Nov. 16th, 1859, from Mr. Farley, in which he gives some particulars of the removal of a third sarsen stone-at a depth of 4ft. very black earth, under it some bones, two teeth of ox or horse (?), jawbone of dog (?), a broken part of a fibula, and quantities of broken pottery. The bodies were buried N. and S., with head to north. In each case there was a streak of black "charred" wood, 3ft. long, " perhaps the shaft of a spear." The discoveries lay in a direct line W. to E. The skeleton under the first stone was in a crouched position “with the hands raised to the shoulders."

It is clear from further letters that the spot was in the arable land in "Broad Town Field," just above the hill. The first grave was about a furlong from the edge of the hill, the second about 200 yds. to the west of the first. At one spot here, above the hill between Clyffe Pypard and Broad Town, quantities of Romano-British pottery could be found on the surface years ago, before the land was laid down to grass. A selection of fragments from this site consisting of examples of most of the commoner wares found in North Wilts, thick and thin grey and black coated, some with trellis pattern, very coarse thick buff or brick coloured, and very thin brick coloured, was sent to Gen. Pitt Rivers, about 1878. He answered "All this appears to be RomanoBritish; it is too hard for anything else, and some of the forms are distinctly Romano-British." There are several examples of “beadrims." There is no Samian amongst it. Nearly all of it is lathe-turned but there is one fragment apparently hand-made of a vessel like the Late Celtic shouldered bowl found at All Cannings Cross Farm, described by Mrs. Cunnington in Wilts Arch. Mag., xxxvii., 536 and figured in

Plate II., fig. 2. It is of the same red coated ware and has the same parallel fluting above the shoulder. Close by, in the adjoining parish of Clyffe Pypard, at "Cuff's Corner," quite a number of interments under large sarsen stones were found by the late Mr. H. N. Goddard many years ago. The importance of this Broad Town note is that it definitely dates some at all events of these burials under sarsens as of the Roman period. Probably the others were also of this time.

E. H. GODDARD.

Sarsens at Avebury broken up, 1799. The following extract from a letter written by William Skeat, tenant of the Manor Farm at Avebury, to Sir Richard Holford, Master in Chancery, on Feb. 19th, 1799, was copied by me from the original then in the possession of Miss Kemm, of the Manor House, Avebury, Dec. 3rd, 1901. It appears to refer to the breaking up of Sarsens on or near the line of the Kennet Avenue, very possibly part of the avenue itself :

I received yours dated ye 12th of ffebruary. These are to acquaint you that there are now Reddy Broke 60 Loads of Sazon Stone, upon Weden [Waden Hill] if you think fitt to have them, or any part of them, you may have them at 1s. ye load, ye gt stones wass Broken out of Mr. Smith's Down by two workmen and by them to be sold as aboosd." (Sic).

E. H. GODDARD. Identification of Wiltshire Barrows. It seems well that it should be as widely known as possible that the Salisbury Museum has become possessed of a series of the 6 inch Ordnance Maps of Wilts covering all the southern half of the county, south of the Pewsey Vale, and that on these maps the whole of the barrows have been marked with numbers in red ink corresponding with those on the similar set of maps for the whole county in the Museum Library at Devizes. These numbers also correspond with those given in "A List of Prehistoric, Roman, and Pagan Saxon Antiquities in the county of Wilts," printed in Wilts Arch. Mag., xxviii., 153 (Dec., 1913). It is therefore now possible for anyone interested in any individual barrow to consult these maps either at Devizes or Salisbury and having found the number attached to it-to look out the reference in the "List” under the name of the Parish in which it occurs, where he will find a short statement of what is known about it, and references to accounts of it in other works, if any such exist. It is hoped that in future in any mention of Wiltshire barrows these numbers may always be quoted, and that in this way the necessity for a large amount of trouble and research may be obviated, and considerably greater accuracy secured in their identification.

E. H. GODDARD. Wiltshire objects in Coniston Museum. I noticed in September, 1917, in the Ruskin Museum at Coniston several iron objects from the collection of the Rev. E. Meyrick, all mounted on one