At the west end of the great abbey church of SS. Peter and Paul at Glastonbury are the ruins of a chapel of very remarkable character.

It was built on the site of a vetusta ecclesia dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and of very great antiquity, which was consumed by fire, together with the great church and nearly all the abbey buildings, in 1184.

As the vetusta ecclesia, from its sanctity and the number of relics it contained, was a holy place much resorted to by pilgrims, its reconstruction was forthwith commenced, and carried out with such speed that “about 1186” it was ready for consecration by Reginald, bishop of Bath.

The way into the cloister of Westminster Abbey from the west is through what in the old days was the parlour, a place where the monks coming from their cloister on the east met those from outside with whom they might have business, who came from the court called The Elms on the west. Now, with its windows blocked up, its walls bare and weather-stained, and its carved and moulded work all decayed and broken, it seems a rather gloomy passage. But it was a light and beautiful room after the general rebuilding of the domestic part of the abbey, which Abbot Litlington completed with the legacy of his predecessor Cardinal Langham. It is in a line with the south walk of the cloister, and lies between the deanery—once the abbot's house—on the north, and the western part of the frater on the south. This end of the frater was walled off from the rest below and formed the pantry and buttery, above which was a gallery.

In my observations on Gothic Architecture, published in the Sixteenth Volume of the Archaeologia, I ventured to express my belief that the rules and principles of it might be recovered by a patient examination of the numerous buildings in that style still remaining. And I also remarked, that the Mysterious Figure, which seems to have been called Vesica Piscis, had a great influence upon the forms of all sorts of things, which were intended for sacred uses; after the establishment of Christianity.

The discovery of the kiln described in the first part of this report is a pleasing instance of the value of publicity in the field of archaeology. One feature of the post-war campaign waged by the Council for British Archaeology in order to induce the general public to report archaeological discoveries was the issue to sand and gravel companies throughout the country of the illustrated pamphlet entitled Sand and Gravel in History. In due course a copy reached the Apex Sand and Gravel Limited, which has its pits by the Foss Way at North Hykeham, southwest of Lincoln. In October 1951 an employee, Mr. E. Clifton, noticed in the bank of one of the water-filled workings a pit-like structure with a scatter of pot-sherds and fragments of clay bars, some of which he collected and handed to the Manager, Mr. W. C. Acott. The latter compared the sherds with the illustrations in his copy of the pamphlet, deduced that they were Romano-British, and reported the discovery to Mr. F. T. Baker, F.S.A., at the City and County Museum, Lincoln, who, from the description given and an examination of a sample of the pottery, was quick to realize the possibility of yet another kiln in the Lincoln area.

Among the remnants of interior decoration in the Roman Imperial palace at Baia are the stuccoed vaults of three rooms, the so-called ‘Stanze di Venere’, which attracted the attention of innumerable travellers and antiquaries during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The first and second rooms, respectively pavilion-vaulted and barrel-vaulted, retain enough of their stucco-work to justify a close study of design and subject-matter; while even in the third room, where only a few fragments survive, some figures and ornaments can be discerned. Further information about the decorations is supplied by unpublished drawings carried out in the early eighteenth century. Dating is difficult, but stylistic evidence suggests that the stucco-work of room 1, which belongs to the original phase of the complex, dates to Augustan times. The other two decorations are later, but no later than the Flavio-Trajanic period, for then or soon afterwards new structures were built at a higher level and the three rooms were turned into cisterns. The decorative programme in both 1 and 2 is primarily Dionysiac but also embodies references to the sports of the palaestra and to bathing, themes which lend weight to the idea that the chambers formed part of a bath-suite.

A few months ago I ventured to communicate to the Society, through your hands, some observations on the structure of ancient castles, and the mode of fortifying them; apprehending an enquiry of that nature might possibly have a tendency to illustrate the more early periods of our history, and to fling light upon the relations of many particular events, which are interesting in themselves, but not capable of being fully understood, without some acquaintance with the ancient manners, customs, and arts, that prevailed in those times. The very favourable reception which that attempt met with, induces me now to trouble you still further, with a short account of a single fragment of antiquity, a very extraordinary piece of old Ordnance; which, although it may, at first sight, be deemed an object unworthy the attention of the Society, may perhaps contribute to illustrate some few historical facts, equally with more magnificent and important remains. And I connot help adding, that perhaps the collecting a number of such ancient fragments, of various ages, and preserving faithful accounts of them, may even be a means of furnishing a very useful comment on history.

Paris Garden and the bear-baiting form a subject so hackneyed that I should not deal with it in a communication to this Society if I did not believe that I had something that was both novel and interesting to lay before them. I shall not, however, enter upon the history of either further than is necessary for the illustration and explanation of my new material.

The original buildings of Winchester College were erected between 1387 and 1394, and among the most important of their fittings was the stained glass of the chapel windows. The general scheme of glazing must have been decided when the college was first designed, and the close iconographical relationship between the Winchester glass and that made for New College, Oxford, carries back the date of the design in outline to about 1380. At Oxford the chapel stood to the west of the hall, with a stone reredos covering the whole of the eastern wall, and a great west window; at Winchester this arrangement was reversed, the blank wall was at the west, while the great window of the chapel was placed in its eastern wall. Both windows consist of seven lights divided into two ranges by a horizontal transom; but the arrangements of mullions and tracery differ. In both cases the main subject of the glazing was a Tree of Jesse: the symbolic Vine springing from Jesse's loins and bearing in its branches a selection, more or less arbitrary, from the Kings of David's Line flanked by Prophets. The chief glass-painter responsible for the production of the glazing at both colleges was Thomas of Oxford, the head of one of the outstanding firms of glaziers working in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth century. Master Thomas was already in high standing by 1386 and died about 1427. It is not certain that he was the designer of the glass, and it is evident from the portions of the original glass still extant that he employed a number of painters. This is confirmed by documentary references to his assistants, and for the production of such a large amount of fully painted glass a big firm must be assumed, rather than the small shop of an artist mainly concerned with design.

A Survey of the capitall messuage and royall mansion house, commonly called Nonsuch, and of the Parke wherein it stands, and of all the houses and lands thereunto belonging, situate lying and being in the county of Surry, late percell of the possessions and joynture lands of Henrietta Maria, the relict and late wife of Charles Stuart, late king of England, made and taken by us whose names are hereunto subscribed, in the month of April, anno Domini 1650, by virtue of a commission grounded upon an act of the Commons assembled in parliament for the sale of the honors, manors, and lands of the late king, queen, and prince, under the hands and seals of five or more of the trustees in the said act named and appointed.

Though there are but few churches in England built on a circular plan, it has generally been supposed that most of them were built by the Jews for Synagogues; and this opinion has long prevailed at Cambridge, because the round church, a plan of which is herewith annexed, is situate in a part of the town commonly called the Jewry, in which place it is generally believed that the Jews lived together, as they formerly did in that part of London called the Old Jewry ; but as it does not appear from any good authority that the Jews ever occupied this particular part of the town, we must seek some better reason for its being called the Jewry. As the Jews were dispersed into various parts of the world soon after the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, it is probable that some of them found the way into Britain while it was subject to the Romans, though we have no certain account of their appearing here under that denomination before the time of William the Conqueror, who gave them great encouragement.

In 1923 the British Museum purchased the series of barbaric ornaments and jewels in the collection of the late General Bertier Delagarde, a well-known Russian archaeologist. The acquisition was made in order to secure a more worthy representation of the culture from which the industrial art of the early Teutonic tribes, including that of the Anglo-Saxons, derived its most characteristic features. We are now able to see in proximity examples illustrating the first and last stages in a long process of development, and observe the marked identity of style in the work of peoples separated from each other in time by three or four centuries, in space by the whole length of Europe. The two plates demonstrate this identity by an instant appeal to the eye. All that is required in addition is a brief indication of the source from which this far-travelling style was derived.