The priory of Colne, situated in north Essex near the river of the same name, was one of the smaller priories, and would probably have been passed over in monastic histories with a brief notice, if it had not been, during its entire history, intimately associated with the family of De Vere, who for more than five centuries and a half held the earldom of Oxford. The De Veres founded it, endowed it, and save in a few exceptional cases were buried in its precincts during the whole period of its existence.

We have had two stone instruments lately discovered in this island, which are supposed, and I think with reason, to be British, and of a very remote antiquity. They were exhibited at the Society accompanied with learned dissertations by the respective members; the first by the late worthy president, the bishop of Carlisle, and the second by the Rev. Mr. Lort. Another of these instruments has lately fallen into my hands, on which occasion, as there seems to remain some doubt concerning the use of them amongst our ancestors, I shall take the liberty of giving my opinion upon that head, together with the grounds thereof.

The subject of this paper has been suggested by a well-known story, to be found in one form or another in many a popular History of England, that the young King Henry the Third was crowned at Gloucester in 1216 with a golden circlet, because the crown of King John his father had been lost with all his other treasures in the waves of the Wash.

At a short distance from the Saltus Castulonensis, one of the northernmost points of the Sierra Morena, in the Province of Jaen (Spain), the mountains become blended, to the east, with a seines of ranges running with a southerly trend towards the Sierra Nevada. This, in its turn, is merged into other ranges that stretch their arms to the coast of the Mediterranean on the south; while their main body continues to the west towards the mouth of the River Baetis, and terminates in a series of elevations, which include those known to the Romans as the Ilipula Mountains, the Alpujarras of modern times. From, my point of departure, and to turn again to the north, the Sierra Morena, which the Romans knew as the Montes Mariani, stretches away in a south-westerly direction, broken here and there by valleys and gorges, but still forming a continuous range, until it dips into the sea on the eastern side of the River Anas, the Guadiana of modern geography. These mountain ranges, or rather groups of ranges, form the eastern and western watersheds of the River Baetis. Indeed, they may be said to form the casket which encloses the jewel of the Spanish peninsula, the rich, the fertile, the beautiful Baetica of the Romans, the Andalucia of to-day.

The History and Antiquities of Nations and Societies have been objects of inquiry to curious persons in all ages, either to separate falshood from truth, and tradition from evidence, to establish what had probability for its bails, or to explode what rested only on the vanity of the inventors and propagators. The first traces of every history were rude and imperfect: better methods of preserving facts succeeded. The unchizeled stone or rudest hieroglyphic accompanied the songs of the bards, to perpetuate the atchievements of a whole nation, or a few individuals; till the life of letters, and the complicated transactions, claims, and interests of men, taught them to multiply memorials, and to draw them up with more skill and accuracy.

When the present Society of Antiquaries of London determined on printing from time to time communications which were made to them, in a series of volumes to be entitled Archæologia, they determined also that there should be prefixed to that work an Introduction, in which should be given a history of their own foundation, and of the attempts which had been previously made to collect the lovers of history and antiquities in associations for the prosecution of their inquiries, and for mutual assistance in their studies. It is not necessary to inquire to whom they committed the task of preparing this Introduction. It is done perhaps as well as the state of the knowledge of the literary history of the country at that period allowed. But when looked at from times when the public mind is not so easily satisfied to remain in ignorance of the minute facts in the history of great undertakings, it cannot, I fear, but be regarded as imperfect and unsatisfactory.

The communication which I now have the honour to lay before the Society of Antiquaries presupposes a knowledge of the contents of my two papers concerning Jersey antiquities already published in Archaeologia. I beg to thank the Society for enabling these successive reports on the excavations of La Cotte de St. Brelade to be printed and illustrated on so generous a scale. I would here take the opportunity of likewise acknowledging my debt to many other helpers: first, to Mr. G. F. B. de Gruchy, Seigneur of Noirmont, and owner of the cave, who has not only made over the whole of the treasure-trove to public institutions, providing funds into the bargain in order as it were to exploit him-self, but has throughout been my constant adjutant and co-worker; then to my Oxford friends and pupils who have at considerable cost to themselves taken part in the work for weeks and months together, Captain A. H. Coltart and Mrs. Coltart, Mr. T. B. Kittredge, Mr. B. de Chrustchoff, Miss Bayly, Mr. R. de J. Fleming Struthers, the Rev. E. O. James, Mrs. Jenkinson, Mr. P. H. Brodie; next, to Jersey residents innumerable, most of them ardent members of the Societe Jersiaise, such as, to mention but a few, Mr. E. T. Nicolle, Mr. J. Sinel, the late Dr. A. Dunlop, Mr. H. J. Baal, Mrs. Briard, Mrs. Symons, Mr. G. Le Bas, Mr. A. H. Barreau, Mr. E. F. Guiton, the two last-mentioned gentlemen having as draughtsman and photographer respectively helped largely to make our results intelligible by way of the eye; and, finally, to the many experts who have in various ways assisted in the interpretation of what we brought to light, among them being Sir Hercules Read and Mr. Reginald A. Smith of the British Museum; Dr. A. Smith Woodward and Dr. C. Andrews of the British Museum of Natural History; Dr. A. Keith of the Royal College of Surgeons; and Professor W. J. Sollas and Mr. H. Balfour of Oxford. Let me add, in order to save the face of my kind allies and advisers, that I am in the last resort responsible for every statement of fact or opinion that appears here.

Every thing that relates to the History and Institutions of this Country has strong claims upon the attention of the Society of Antiquaries; and I therefore do myself the honour of submitting for its consideration the accompanying Observations on the order of the Garter.

Diodorus in his account of Gaul, speaking of the ore obtained from the streams, says, that “by this means accumulating abundance of Gold, not only the women, but the men, use it for ornament; for round their wrists and arms they wear bracelets; round their necks thick collars of pure gold, and rings of great value, and even golden breast-plates.” Polybius, particularly remarks this national custom, and it is the subject of frequent allusion among the Roman authors, as in the following passage from Virgil, relating to the host of Brennus:

Aurea csesaries ollis, atque aurea vestis:

Virgatis lucent sagulis: turn lactea colla

Auro innectuntur.

The numerous tumuli or barrows, that meet the eye of the traveller in every direction, as he passes over the Wiltshire and Dorsetshire Downs; naturally excite the curious mind to know the history of these ancient and simple monuments.

The Lias peneplain of the Vale of Glamorgan west of the Thaw valley forms an undulating plateau dissected by streams, the higher portions being from 250 to 300 ft. above sea level. One of the larger of these upland areas, that on which Wick village is sited, is some four miles in length by two in breadth. An outlier on the north-east extends this upland nearly to Cowbridge.

Thornbury, in Gloucestershire, rebuilt by Edward, Duke of Buckingham, is a remarkable example of the mixed architecture of the Castle and the Hall; in which, as far as the design was carried into execution, military and civil conveniences were happily united. In the book of the survey of the Duke of Buckingham's lands, we have the following general description of the place, at the time of the tragic death of the noble owner.

Amongst the various methods of transferring inheritances in use with our ancestors was that of conveying them by a Horn, either in Frank Almoigne, or in Fee, or in Serjeantry. Ingulphus, abbot of Croyland, particularly specifies the Horn amongst those things whereby lands were conveyed in the beginning of the Conqueror's reign. His words are too remarkable to be omitted on this occasion; ‘Conferebantur etiam primo multa ‘praedia nudo verbo, absque scripto vel cbartâ, tantum cum dominī ‘gladio, vel gateâ, vel cornu, vel craterâ; et plurima tenementa cum ‘calcari, cum strigili, cum arcu; et nonnulla cum sagittâ. At first ‘(says he, speaking of the Conqueror's time) many estates were ‘transferred by bare word of mouth, without any writing or char ‘ter, only by the Lord's sword, or helmet, or born, or cup; and ‘many tenements by a spur, a scraper, a bow; and some by an ‘arrow.’ It should seem by this account given us by Ingulphus, which is to clear and express, that the implement was always such as was well known to have belonged to the donor or grantor.

Finds from the interesting pagan Saxon cemetery at Ruskington, 3½ miles north of the better-known cemetery at Sleaford, have been published piecemeal and, for the sake of completeness, it seems desirable to place on record certain objects acquired recently by Grantham Museum under the terms of the will of the late Dr. J. H. Gibson of Aldershot. It appears that the latter was in the neighbourhood of Ruskington in 1917 and acquired the objects from a local farmer who had previously obtained them from the gravel-pit north of the village of Ruskington, where burials have been recorded from time to time.

In examining some material in the reserves of the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter, I noticed a small necklace which includes beads of blue faience (pl. vii a). The entry in the museum's Accessions Book stated that it had been presented in 1917 by Mr. A. Amos, ‘from a barrow on Beacon Hill, North Molton’, and that it had been ‘found with cremated bones, an urn and flint implements’. After many difficulties I succeeded, with the help of Mr. R. Tucker, agent to Lord Poltimore for his North Molton estate, in obtaining details of the discovery. I am much indebted to him for his services, and to Mrs. Lamb and Miss Amos of Dawlish, and to Mr. Passmore of North Molton for the information they so readily provided about an event of so many years ago.

Two Migration period finds of gold ‘payment rings’ from south-western Norway are identified as sets of balance weights, carefully adjusted to the old system of aurar and ertogar (pl. of ON eyrir m. and ertog m.), metrologically taken over from the Roman system, with the eyrir equivalent to the Roman ounce of 27·29 gm. The sets can be used for weighing with great accuracy at intervals of eyrir, one being adjusted to an eyrir value of 27·42 gm., the other set ingeniously made to be used for weighing in units of two different eyrir values, one of 27·35 gm. (0·06 more than the Roman standard ounce), and another of 29·13 gm., near the maximum of the accepted standard variation of the eyrir as it can be found in other contemporary gold finds of south-western Norway. A general discussion argues that the Roman weight system and standards were taken over and practised in Northern Europe from the fourth century onwards.

Larriban or Larry Bane Head is a limestone promontory rising sheer some 150 ft. above the sea in the townland of Knocksoghey, parish of Ballintoy, about a mile east of the caves recently examined by Dr. Jackson. The neck of the promontory has been cut off by a rampart and fosse about 100 ft. from its extremity. The fort thus formed gives its name to the headland, Leath Rath Ban, the Half White Fort. Before the war more than half the enclosed area and a section of the rampart had been quarried away and the original fosse materially altered. According to the report furnished by Thomas Fagan to the Ordnance Survey in 1838 the defended area measured ‘about half a rood’, and the ‘moat was on an average 23 ft. in width’. One of the workers employed at the quarry remembers that the entrance to the fort was near the centre of the rampart. It has now been destroyed. The quarrying has, however, left an instructive section through the rampart. In this section Mr. Blake Whelan found portions of a pot standing in what seemed to be a sort of kiln in the centre of the wall. The surviving portions of building here might outline the back of a guard chamber opening near the main entrance which must have traversed the wall close at hand (P in fig. I).

Craike or Crayke Hill stands on the southern slope of Garton Slack, in the north-western corner of the parish of Kirkburn, three miles west of Great Driffield (Nat. Grid. ref. SE 972576) (fig. 1). Garton Slack is a wide dry valley penetrating the central chalk Wolds of the East Riding of Yorkshire between Wetwang and Driffield. Scattered over the flat floor of the Slack are the much-ploughed remains of Mortimer's Garton Slack Group of round barrows. Once Craike Hill, which is a natural hill of fine chalk similar to the rest of the Slack floor, was a prominent landmark, but gravel digging since 1938 has reduced it to a crater. Originally it stood about 50 ft. above the floor of the Slack and was composed of beds of fine chalk gravel interspersed with sandy layers towards the base. The beds show a dip towards the north. Over the top of the hill was a fine sandy brown soil containing chalk, flint, and greenstone pebbles. Much of this remains as overburden dumped on the lower slopes.

About three dozen bronze anvils are known from Bronze Age Europe. They are small in size, probably indicating that they were used for delicate work. Simple, Beaked and Complex forms are distinguished, based on the presence of special features such as work surfaces, beaks, swages and punching holes, which were used in various processes of manufacture and decoration of small bronze and gold artefacts. The anvils are widely distributed throughout north-west Europe, and dated examples belong to the later Middle and Late Bronze Age (c. 1200–700 B.C.). Thirty-six anvils are catalogued and briefly described.