Last year, on this occasion of our Anniversary Meeting, I was able to begin my address with a reference to the very handsome bequest received by the Society from our Fellow Mr. Garraway Rice. This year I have to report an even larger benefaction, partly immediate and partly in prospect. By the death of Miss May Morris (whose name will always be held in honour among lovers of the beautiful past, for her own sake as well as that of her father), the Society entered into the possession of the legacy of her sister, Miss Jane Morris, amounting to about £8,500. It will also eventually receive, after the termination of a life interest, a bequest of somewhat similar amount from the estate of Miss May Morris herself. The income from these benefactions will be available for the conservation of ancient buildings and monuments, especially of the medieval period, and will greatly increase the power of the Society for good. The fund will also serve as a worthy monument of a family which did much for the appreciation of medieval art, and for the preservation of our historic monuments and the beauties of our countryside.

A preliminary excavation of this barrow was made in 1936 and an account of the work then undertaken, together with a detailed topographical description of the site, was published in this Journal for April 1937 (vol. xvii, p. 122). The admittedly tentative conclusions which could then be advanced regarding its date and its relationship to the characteristic Neolithic longbarrows were largely based on extrinsic evidence, and positive indications obtained during the excavation itself were not as definite as could be wished. In 1937 Sir Edmund Davis suggested that in view of the significant geographical situation of the barrow further investigation was desirable, and he very generously again agreed to be entirely responsible for the cost. Altogether the work occupied some eight weeks, and during the college vacation I had the valued assistance of Dr. S. Graham Brade-Birks, Head of the Department of Geology at the South-Eastern Agricultural College, Wye. Mr. H. B. Bescoby, Head of the Department of Surveying at Wye, and two of his students, Messrs. D. Vickers and H. Castel, very kindly prepared a contour plan of the barrow, upon which the general plan (pl. XLIX) is based. My best thanks are also due to Dr. A. J. E. Cave, Dr. J. Wilfrid Jackson, Mr. A. S. Kennard, Mr. B. H. St. J. O'Neil, and Mr. Stuart Piggott for their contributions to this report, and again to Mr. H. Read Gillett, Sir Edmund Davis's agent, for many kindnesses.

Since the publication, several years ago, of my paper on the relationship of rostro-carinates to certain Lower Palaeolithic handaxes, a great deal more evidence bearing on this matter has come to light. I have been able to examine large numbers of handaxes, found in this country and in very widely separated places abroad, which exhibit, in their profile and in other characteristics, an extraordinarily close resemblance to rostro-carinates. Such palaeolithic specimens I have called rostrate hand-axes, and their number and wide distribution are beyond dispute. If it is a fact that the rostro-carinate is the ancestral form from which the earliest hand-axes were developed, then it would be reasonable to suppose that the oldest group of these, being nearest in time to the rostro-carinate epoch, would contain the largest number of specimens of the rostrate hand-axe type. Moreover, it would be expected that, in the later hand-axe groups, traces of the ancestral form would gradually fade out, and, except for certain specimens of what may be called atavistic form, be eliminated. That is the theory, and it is sometimes the fate of theories to be killed by facts, but in the case under consideration the reverse holds true. For few things in prehistoric archaeology are clearer than that rostrate hand-axes are most numerous in the Early Chelles period, or that the traces of the rostro-carinate form become ever less in evidence in the later epoch of St. Acheul. Though this is the case, however, the matter is not so simple and straightforward as was perhaps at first supposed.

Amongst a quantity of broken pottery of various periods found last year during excavations in the moat of the Tower of London is a vase which throws some light on the obscure question of the origin of Netherlands maiolica. The vase is complete except for the foot, which was missing and has been restored in plaster in what is probably a correct reconstruction of its original form. The shape is well enough shown in the accompanying illustrations (pls. LV, LVI) to call for no description. It is virtually the same as that of a vase in many respects similar which was dug up some years ago in the City of London and was bought for the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1938 at the sale of the collection of the late Mr. William Ridout (pl. LVII); of this second vase also only the body and neck remain, the missing foot having similarly been made good in plaster.

The burial-mound under discussion appears to have been situated some five miles from Wimborne, by the Blandford road and near the hill-fort of Badbury Rings. Nothing remains of it to-day, and our information as to its structure and contents is due to the Rev. J. H. Austen of Ensbury, who in 1845 found the barrow was being ploughed out and was already two-thirds removed when he excavated and described what remained. The remarkable find of a stone with representations of metal axes and daggers upon it, hitherto unillustrated, renders a republication and discussion of the site desirable.

It may be remembered that some years ago, in a paper read before this Society, ‘Equestrian Aquamaniles’ were divided into three groups, according to the mode of exit of the water from the vessel, which groups were arranged as follows:

Group I. Exit from the mouth of the horse, A.D. 1180–1270.

Group II. Exit from the forehead of the horse, A.D. 1270–1350.

Group III. Exit from the chest of the horse, A.D. 1350–1450.

The equestrian aquamanile now to be considered, which has a dark, lustrous patina, measures 11½ in. in length and 12¾ in. in height and belongs to group II and to that subdivision in which the head and body of the rider are turned to one side.

The iron stirrup and pottery vessel recorded here were found at Rabley Heath, Hertfordshire, in September 1938. Rabley Heath is a heath only in name, for to-day it is divided into fields interspersed with much woodland. It is situated about a mile south of Knebworth and two miles north of Welwyn, at an altitude of less than 600 ft.; the soil is Boulderclay overlying the chalk. To the south-west the land falls to the Mimram valley, and in the opposite direction to the southern end of the Hitchin Gap which cuts through the extension of the Chiltern Hills along the north edge of Hertfordshire.

Early medieval spoons are sufficiently rare to make any addition to their number a matter of interest. The specimen illustrated on pl. lxi, a and fig. I was found in London and is now in the Guildhall Museum, to the authorities of which I am indebted for permission to publish it. Dr. P. Nørland, whose publication of the double spoon from Ribe underlies much of what follows, provided the original of pl. LXII; and Dr. S. Grieg has allowed me to reproduce pl. LXV from his invaluable work, Middelalderske Byfunde fra Bergen og Oslo (figs. 52 and 53). I have also to thank Mr. T. D. Kendrick, Mr. R. L. S. Bruce-Mitford, and Mr.G. C. Dunning for several helpful suggestions.