I have not found it easy, in the annual chronicles which I have already had the honour to recount, to decide which activity, which occasion, should have pride of place. In preparing this third anniversary address I had no doubts; the increased comfort provided for Fellows (until heating of any sort was denied us) is my opening theme. I extol not only the improved lighting but more particularly the circulating warmth in the library during the past severe winter. The effect on Man of radiant heat in a library may, I hope, be likened to that of sherris sack in a tavern, concerning which you will recall the immortal prognosis: ‘it ascends even into the brain, making it apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble, fiery, and delectable shapes’.

In a previous volume of this journal a piece of ornamental openwork in lead from excavations at Whitby Abbey was published as a medieval ventilator-screen of the type described by the Rev. Christopher Woodforde. These are likewise of lead and of obvious Gothic shape. The Whitby piece was accordingly dated to the late thirteenth century. A more detailed examination shows, however, that the Whitby openwork is neither Gothic in shape nor a ventilator-screen (pl. xixa).

At the end of this first full year of my office as your President I wish to thank every Fellow of the Society for the kindness and support that they have shown me and naturally above all I must thank my fellow officers whose patience and counsel have been unbounded. 1967 is an important year for the Society, for in it we celebrate our two hundred and fiftieth anniversary. The Council has considered what should be done to mark this occasion and it has been decided that this will take the form of an Anniversary Party to beheld from 5.30 to 8.30 p.m. on Thursday, the 12th of October. There will be some guests, but Fellows will be asked to subscribe towards their own entertainment. Two hundred and fifty years is half five hundred years, yet I still feel that the Old Lady of Burlington House is quite young for her age. Long may she remain so, and it is right and proper to salute the young as well as the not so young who make up our membership and to beg them to keep her ever in her pristine freshness and enterprise.

A study of seven collections of clothing accounts reveals that in the period 1660–1700 ten firms held a dominant position in London as suppliers of clothes and materials to the nobility. Below this group there were numerous tradesmen with only one aristocratic patron at a time.

Flint implements were first discovered in the working of the sand-pit immediately to the east of Selmeston church almost mid-way between Lewes and Polegate, Sussex, by Mr. W. J. Parsons, who at that time was resident in the neighbouring village of Alciston. The news soon reached the ears of Dr. E. Curwen, F.S.A., who arranged to secure the flints as they were recovered. Towards this he enlisted the aid of Mr. H. A. Davies of Selmeston, who has not only maintained a vigilant watch over the pit, but has also been of great assistance in various ways during further investigations on the site. The present author noticed the few specimens then in Dr. Curwen's collection in his Mesolithic Age in Britain, pp. 83 and 84. When on first visiting the site with Dr. Curwen the section of what appeared to be a pit-dwelling was discovered, it became clear that excavation would greatly enhance our knowledge of the site. Accordingly, with the generous permission of Dr. Curwen and the kind assistance of Mr. Parsons, the pit (pit 1) of which we had seen the first indications, and the remains of another (pit 2), were excavated early in the month of June 1933. Subsequently, another pit-dwelling (pit 3) becoming apparent during the normal course of working back the section of the sand-pit, the author undertook further excavations in the autumn, when he was assisted by Mr. Davies. We should like to acknowledge the kindness of Messrs. Osborn & Bennet of Eastbourne for allowing us to excavate in the sand-pit. Finally the report is made more valuable by identifications by Messrs. Christopher Hawkes, F.S.A., and J. C. Maby, B.Sc.

The two matters which I have to lay before you to-night are the results of chance discoveries made at Ripon during the installation of a heating system and at York in digging a grave. Cathedral churches in full and constant use do not lend themselves to exhaustive archaeological investigation, but it is my first duty to express to the Deans of York and Ripon my most sincere acknowledgement of their kindness in allowing these researches to be pushed to the farthest possible limits. That certain points must remain doubtful is obvious, but since nothing short of the complete ruin of the two Minsters would ensure a full examination we may content ourselves with the reflection that it is possible to pay too high a price for knowledge.

Excavations at St. Oswald's Priory, Gloucester, showed that the site was occupied in the second century by the Roman municipal tile works which was abandoned by the fourth century. The ruined church which now stands on the site shows two successive building phases pre-dating a Norman arcade; excavation established part of the plan of this late Anglo-Saxon church and also uncovered part of the tenth- to thirteenth-century cemetery. Documentary evidence suggests that this was the ‘new minster’ built by Æthelflæd and Æthelred of Mercia. Taking other historical and archaeological evidence into consideration, Gloucester can be argued to have had, in the late ninth to early tenth century, a special significance for the rulers of Mercia.

Specialist reports are offered on the stratified medieval pottery, and on the inscribed bell-mould from the tenth-century church.

The evidence of human activity in the Somerset Levels in the first millennium B.C. consists of wooden trackways laid across areas of developing raised bog, and joining small settlements on the higher, drier lands of the Poldens and the Wedmore ridge. The excavation of one of these tracks, of the sixth century B.C., is described. Stray finds of weapons and tools continue to be made by peat-cutters and by archaeologists; the most recent of these finds are a hazelwood peg or truncheon, and a sycamore tent peg, of the fourth or third century B.C. The relationship of the trackways and other finds to the marshside villages at Meare remains to be established.

The fact that the examples of Medieval Painting surviving in England are but a fraction of the pictorial production of this country during the period in question, is, of course, a commonplace among all students of the subject; and whenever you follow up a special line of investigation in this connexion you inevitably get a fresh and vivid illustration of this fact.

Twice during the past year it has been the privilege and duty of the Society to present an address to its Sovereign—once to congratulate His late Majesty, King George V, on the celebration of the Silver Jubilee of His accession, and once to express our deep sorrow at His death and our loyal prayers for the prosperity of His successor, His present Majesty King Edward VIII. I am glad now to be able to announce to you that King Edward has been graciously pleased to continue to the Society the royal patronage which it has enjoyed from His predecessors since its foundation.

From time to time excavations in the City of London, particularly in the region of King William Street and Lombard Street, have revealed at the base of the Roman deposits thick layers of bright red clay, containing burnt roofing-tiles, charred wood, etc., evidently the debris of timber and clay houses destroyed by fire. Hitherto little or no internal evidence for dating these layers has been forthcoming, and from their position it has usually been assumed that they result from the sack of the town by Boudicca. In recent years, however, the burnt layers have again been found in situ at a number of sites, and are now shown by the pottery contained in them to belong to two different periods, namely, the mid-first century and the early second century. It is necessary to recognize, therefore, that the Roman town suffered from extensive fires on two occasions.

Early in 1929 the British Museum acquired a lot of two dozen small bronzes. Mr. Reginald Smith gave a preliminary account of them and illustrated eighteen in the British Museum Quarterly. The Society is indebted to the Trustees of the British Museum for the loan of these plates (our 1 and 11). Mr. Smith was good enough to suggest that I should treat them in greater detail in the Antiquaries Journal.

In April last the Society published two gold crescents found in Cornwall and now in Truro Museum; and in view of the proximity of Ireland, it is not surprising that others have been found; but the present exhibit (figs. 1–3) is the most important of its kind, being the only case in which anything to indicate a precise date has been found with gold crescents anywhere. Mr. George Penrose, Local Secretary, and Curator of Truro Museum, sent with the three objects in question the following information:

‘The two gold crescents (figs. 1, 2) and bronze celt (fig. 3) sent for exhibition were found together, close to the edge of a low cliff at Harlyn or Perlaze Bay, near Padstow, Cornwall, sometime during the year 1864.

Émile Mâle says that medieval Christian art in its last period had lost touch with the great tradition of symbolism which had been so important in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and still largely dominated the art of the fourteenth. But there was one great symbolical idea which survived, and that was the harmony of the Old and New Testaments; and so we find among the most popular subjects of fifteenth-century Church art the concordance of the Apostles and Prophets in the Creed, and the series of parallels between the life of Jesus and episodes of Old Testament history, which were summed up and digested in the Biblia Pauperum and the Speculum Humanae Salvationis. The reason for the popularity of these subjects was, no doubt, their didactic value, and though Mâle does not develop this side of the subject, we may say that one, though not the only, characteristic of the religious art of the fifteenth century was that, instead of being symbolical, it became didactic. We find in this period a whole series of subjects which reduced the articles of Christian faith and practice to pictorial form, and seem to have been intended to illustrate the medieval catechism by which the teaching of the Church was imparted.

In opening this, my second, Anniversary Address, I will ask you to lend me your imagination: for I am in fact writing it in the capital of the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan a few days after the melodramatic removal of British control from the Arab Legion. The swarming population of Amman, tense and expectant, is dry tinder to any spark that blows, and sparks are not lacking. As I drove down the main street this morning, rifle-shots punctuated the uneasy flow of traffic, and hysteria waxed and waned with an ugly uncertainty. But, having said that, I turn to more relevant matter. I was on my way to the office of a Jordanian architect to discuss with him the preparation of a building in Jerusalem to house, for the first time, a resident British School of Archaeology. He received me with charm and coffee.

Dr. Cecil Curwen's discovery in the Late Bronze Age settlement on Plumpton Plain, Sussex, of decorated pottery of the same class as the Park Brow globular vessels, and the recognition of these as being of north French origin, provides a suitable opportunity to draw attention to two urns of British origin found abroad, one of which helps to emphasize this connexion with France. The pottery consists of fragments of overhanging-rim urns which have been found in Holland and north-east France.

Of the five swords to be described four, of iron, come from the Middle Thames basin. The fifth is sculptured on stone and comes from the North Riding of Yorkshire. It is especially interesting as a commentary on one of the iron swords.

Under each sword description there has been added a brief note on types and possible affinities.

I have to thank Mrs. Brakspear, the vicar of Ebberston, the Thames Conservancy Board, and Reading Museum for allowing me to publish the swords; and Messrs. W. A. Smallcombe, W. Seaby, C. Scott, R. Patterson, D. E. Redfearn, J. D. Cowen, and T. D. Kendrick for much help given.