Down (Plates LV.-LVII. Cat. of Ant. in Museum, Pt. II.). Wiltshire, so rich in remains of the earlier periods, is most unaccountably poor in Saxon relics. The Museum has also acquired by purchase from Mr. O. G. S. Crawford, Curator of the new Isle of Wight Museum, in Carisbrooke Castle, certain bronzes which belonged to the Old Newport Museum, the contents of which have now (1911-12) been removed to Carisbrooke, all objects not connected with the Isle of Wight being got rid of. They consist of two handles of some such small bucket or vessel as the Bartlow Vase, with recurved knobbed ends, and one smaller similar handle retaining on one side the attachment by which, apparently, it was fastened to a drawer or box of wood. The remaining object is a portion, 4in. long, of the handle of a stout ladle, the end recurved into a wellformed duck's head. Similar long-handled ladles with ducks' beads are in the Museum at Naples. All these objects were attached to cards bearing the inscription "Taken from "[or "Found in "]"a Barrow in Wiltshire. Presented by A. H. Burkitt, F.S.A." Beyond this nothing is known af the place of their discovery. I should be very glad to hear of any clue as to the locality of the barrow from which these objects are said to have come. ED. H. GODDARD. Bronze Implements not hitherto Recorded. 1 Palstave found at Winterbourne Gunner. The Rev. C. V. Goddard writes that Mrs. Cowan, wife of the Rev. G. A. Cowan, Rector of Purse Caundle, Dorset, possesses a bronze palstave found at Winterbourne Gunner, measuring now 5 inches in length. Both the cutting edge of the blade and the butt end of the socket have been broken, and owing to a recent fall the implement is now in two pieces. It has a long socket with deep stop ridge, with a V shaped ornament just on the blade side of the latter. It is looped, but the loop has not been perforated in the casting. A drawing of the implement by Mr. Goddard has been placed in the Society's collection of drawings and prints. Spearhead found near Spye Park. Police Sergeant Hill, now stationed at Purton, tells me (October 3rd, 1912) that some nine years ago he became possessed of a bronze socketed and looped spearhead, which was found somewhere" near Spye Park," presumably in the parish of Chittoe. It was about 6 or 7 inches long, with a blade about 2 inches wide, having a strong midrib. He took it home, but it disappeared, and he never knew what became of it. ED. H. GODDARD. Polished Stone Celt with grooves on the edges. The celt (here illustrated) was originally in the Arnold Museum at Gravesend. I happened to attend the sale at Stevens' Auction Rooms, in London, and bought it in a mixed lot. It had a label stuck on to 1 (Gargiulo. Recueil des Monuments du Musee National. Plates 85, 86.) 2 The Society is indebted to Mr. Newall for the cost of the plate and block illustrating his note. it, the ink of which was very faded, saying "Ancient British axe from Leddington, Wilts." And this is all I can find out about its previous history. Leddington should no doubt be Liddington, and the wrong spelling goes a long way to prove its genuineness, as Mr. Goddard Section of Stone Celt, showing grooves on the sides. suggests to me in his letter, but I would very much like to know its full history. It is made of a dense hard dark grey sandstone, or grit, foreign to Wiltshire, and is 8in. long, 2 inches and fifteen-sixteenths wide, and two inches thick. Unfortunately about half the cutting edge is missing. but whether this was done by use or not I cannot say. It is in any case an old break. The interesting point about the specimen is of course the groove running down both sides. Apparently the sides, which are in. wide in the widest part, were first ground flat, and afterwards a regular hollow groove, beginning at the cutting edge and dying out about 2in. from the butt end, measuring about three-sixteenths of an inch in width and one-sixteenth of an inch in depth, in the middle of the side, was regularly and carefully cut out. The celt is ground all Its faces are not perfect curves, but inclined to be three-sided. This, however, is scarcely noticeable to the eye, and can be more easily felt. Sir John Evans seems to have known of no such grooved celt, nor in answer to my enquiries can I hear of any such at the British Museum or at the museums of Edinburgh or Dublin. I should be very interested to hear of the existence of any other specimens. R. S. NEWALL. Bewley Court. In Mr. Brakspear's paper on Bewley Court (p. 391), there are some mistakes, which I have pointed out to the author, and it seems desirable that the corrections should appear in the Magazine. The time at my disposal will not admit of my going into the matter at any length. over. Bewley Court never belonged either to Edward Baynard or his son, Sir Robert Baynard. The Inquisitio Post Mortem, to which Mr. Brakspear refers, shows, no doubt, that Sir Robert Baynard held and at Bewley, but that was probably land which his ancestors had held for a considerable time, and it is described as part of the manor of Lackham. It was not any part of the land that came to Edward Baynard, by exchange with Sir William Sharington, for that is described as divers closes or parcels of pasture situated within the parish of Laycocke, called Denehill, Pennesdowne, the Pyke, and the Lukehorne, containing 217 acres." There is some apparent confusion between Sir William Sharington and his brother, Sir Henry Sharington. I take the meaning to be that the latter freed the demesne lands of Lackham from the tithes of grain and hay that had been payable to him as lay rector. Bewley Court is not mentioned at all. Places of the same name were not necessarily in the same manor and there might be several manors bearing the same name. There certainly was a manor of Bewley, of which Bewley Court must have been the manor place. It appears to have happened, all over the country, that when two or more manors, in the same parish or even beyond, came into the hands of the same lord, the smaller manors came to be regarded as merged in the larger manor and their separate existence was gradually forgotten. Bewley Court, which had been purchased from Edward Darrel, Esq., by Sir William Sharington, passed after his death, in 1553, with his other lands, to his brother Henry. Sir Henry Sharington died in 1580, and Bewley Court, with Bowden Park and a good deal more, became the property of his second but eldest surviving daughter, Grace, Lady Mildmay. Her only daughter, Mary, married Francis Fane, who was created Earl of Westmorland, and their son, Mildmay Fane, second Earl of Westmorland, appears to have sold all his Wiltshire property, in the time of Charles the Second. To whom Bewley Court was then sold I do not at present know, but I think it may not improbably have been to one of the Mitchell family, who appear to have been previously living there and acting as agents for Lord Westmorland. In the first half of the eighteenth century, Bewley Court belonged to Mr. Lloyd, and, in 1764, it had recently been acquired from Mr. Lloyd by Mr. Montagu, of Lackham. It continued to form part of the Lackham Estate, until the sale and to a great extent the breaking up of that estate, in the early part of the last century, when it became the property of the late Mr. Huggens, who held, I believe, a mortgage on part of the estate. He founded a charitable institution, called Huggens's College, situated, I think, in Kent, and upon that institution he bestowed his property in the parish of Lacock. From the Trustees of that Charity Mr. Palmer purchased those lands, so that they again form part of the Lackham estate. I may add that Bewley Court was not within the limits of the forest of Chippenham. The forest is not recorded to have ever extended to the south of the road from Naish Hill to Rey Bridge, which appears to have been the ancient boundary. At a later period the bounds of the forest were somewhat further to the north, coinciding with the present bounds of the civil parish of Pewsham. C. H. TALBOT. Great Crested Grebe (Podiceps cristatus), on Braden Pond. Mr. George Simpkins writes that on April 3rd, 1912, he saw swimming and diving on the open water of Braden Pond, close to the public road, a Great Crested Glebe. It is greatly to be wished that this fine bird, of which Smith in his Birds of Wilts records only four specimens as having occurred in Wiltshire, would take up its permanent quarters on this sheet of water, one of the very few situations in the county suitable for its habitation. |