The gold ornament here described was found over a hundred years ago at the north end of the hamlet of Galhampton and just within the parish of Castle Cary, but it has never been recorded before. It was recently presented to the Somerset Museum at Taunton Castle by Dr. R. E. H. Woodforde (who now resides in Hertfordshire). It had been handed down in his family, and was dug up by his great-grandfather, Colonel William Woodforde (1758–1844) in his garden on the west side and close to the main road from Castle Cary to Ilchester.

William Morris owned a volume, bound in red morocco and now preserved at Kelmscott Manor, which contains copies of four early printed Italian writing-manuals of the sixteenth century, i.e. La Operina and Il modo de temperare le Penne by Vicentino (Arrighi), Lo presente libro by G. A. Tagliente, and Thesauro de Scrittori by Ugo da Carpi. The article depicts the technical and social environment in which Italian writing-manuals originated, traces the complex printing history of the works mentioned above, and identifies the editions and dates to which they belong. It then shows how the ‘Kelmscott volume’ influenced the contributions of Morris, Emery Walker, Edward Johnston and, more recently, Alfred Fairbank in the fields of manuscript copying, type-design and italic handwriting.

Respectful as I must be, and am, of the traditional forms for the transaction of our Society's business, I feel nevertheless that some change is desirable in the order of events at our Anniversary meeting. It does not seem to me fitting that the presentation of medals in recognition of services of high value to scholarship should come at the end of our proceedings, as a kind of appendix to them. These awards should stand as the foremost event of the evening. Of course, in these rooms tradition must be invoked to justify innovation. To say: nec omnia apud priores meliora; that times change, and not always for the worse, is a risky thing in this company.But our practice in earlier years, in the 1930s, was altered more than once; so the tradition can be said to be one of change. Accordingly, before we go on to anything else, I invite those present to prepare to mark with their congratulations and applause the award of the Frend medal and of the Society's gold medal.

The present notes, with their accompanying photographs, have for their purpose the placing on record of some English alabaster carvings which either differ in style, in noteworthy details, or in iconography from pieces previously illustrated or described, or supply fresh examples of some uncommon technique or unusual subject. The objects have not hitherto, so far as I know, been published.

On 21st April 1940 Willcocks McKenzie, lorry-driver of Thame, while walking along the left bank of the river Thame, about one mile north of the town and a short distance upstream from a pool known as Jemmett's Hole, had his eye attracted by the gleam of metal. This, on investigation, proved to come from the parcel of rings and coins which are the subject of this account.

Works to the south side of the Gothic cloister at Norwich Cathedral in 1900 produced a series of finely sculpted double-capitals, which have long been identified as deriving from the Romanesque predecessor that was progressively demolished and replaced in 1297–1430. Additional discoveries in 1900 included twelfth-century voussoirs and jamb stones, which probably came from one of the larger doorways – perhaps to the chapter house – that opened off the cloister. These fragments have attracted considerable interest since 1900, almost entirely focused on art historical analysis of the subjects, style and date of the historiated double-capitals. Discovery of further fragments from the Romanesque cloister during works to the easternmost bay of the south walk (Bay 15) in 2018, however, allows us to understand more of its architecture. Although lacking the impressiveness of the earlier finds, these newly revealed sculpted stones include voussoirs and a shaft from the cloister arcades, and allow reconstruction of the overall form of the twelfth-century cloister. Moreover, the discovery of the use of calc-sinter – a faux marble sourced from the Eifel aqueduct – for the shafts of the arcades reveals that the Romanesque cloister had a hitherto entirely unsuspected lavishness.

The hoard which has given its name to the type was found in 1735 on Arreton Down in the centre of the eastern half of the island. Part was exhibited to the Society that year and a further ten pieces in 1736, drawings being made of the last exhibit. In 1855 Mr. A. W. Franks (later Sir Wollaston Franks) described in detail the hoard as then known, i.e. six pieces in the British Museum and the remainder recorded by the drawings made in 1736 (Archaeol. xxxvi, 326–31). In 1909 the well-known socketed spear-head and a tanged one were acquired by the British Museum from Canon Greenwell's collection. The hoard consisted of ten spear-heads, two daggers, and four flanged axes. They are referred to below as ‘Franks, no. —’; ‘B.M.’ if in the British Museum, ‘D’ if now known only by a drawing.

It is well known from Ptolemy's Geography (11, ii, 10) that he places the tribe of the Parisii in east Yorkshire with its capital at Petuaria, the position of which has recently been established at Brough-on-the-Humber by an inscription found by Philip Corder, F.S.A. The obvious assumption that this tribe had migrated from the region of the Seine is supported by a comparison of their chariot-burials in the King's Barrow at Arras, at Hesslekew and at Seamer, all in east Yorkshire, with a chariot-burial at Nanterre near Paris of La Tène II age, where in both the British and Gaulish cases horses were buried with the chariot, contrary to the custom in the Marne chariot-burials. The Yorkshire graves are not anterior to 300 B.C., according to Déchelette, although the first migration of the tribe may possibly have taken place several generations earlier. In a grave at North Grimston, also in east Yorkshire, a short sword with bronze anthropoid handle (fig. 6) was found together with a typical La Tène II sword, and it is clearly closely related to an anthropoid sword found near Chaumont (Haute Marne) (fig. 5.) This Yorkshire example was probably a sword belonging to the earlier generation of the Parisii who migrated into Yorkshire presumably about 400 B.C. Two similar anthropoid short swords are known from the same part of Yorkshire, i.e. from Lord Londesborough's collection and from Clotherholme near Ripon.

The four flint implements described and illustrated in this article have been found at the following places in the county of Suffolk, viz. Southwold, Charsfield, Hoxne, and Nacton. The Southwold specimen (figs, 1, 1A, and 1B) was found lying at the foot of a low cliff bordering the beach at this place by Mrs. Edgar Turner of Walberswick, who has been so good as to lend the implement to the Ipswich Museum. The specimen exhibits the unchanged black colour of the original flint, carries very little ‘gloss’, and is unabraded and unworn. Unfortunately the implement has had, at some time, a piece broken from it and replaced, but the drawings show clearly where this fracturing occurred.

So many discoveries have been made in the gravels of this region during the last few years, following upon a number which have been noted previously, that it seems advisable to treat them as forming a single body of evidence, which goes far to trace the evolution of the valley in Pleistocene and subsequent times.