So much anxiety has been aroused by recent cases where historic buildings and collections of archives have been transported across the Atlantic, or where through apathy and neglect we have allowed their destruction at home, that I think it may be serviceable to the Society if I summarize the general situation, directing attention to the organization of effort to preserve our heritage, to the obstacles encountered in the process, and in a more general fashion to the strengthening and improvement of our methods. And let me say at the outset that our Society is closely concerned in the problem. We have taken our full share during the past twelve months in striving to influence public opinion in the right direction. Our duty is not only to investigate the past, but to hand forward to our successors the fullest measure of our historic assets, confident that as time goes on their value will ever be the more appreciated.

This subject was not considered in any great detail in the work of Mr. Johnson and myself upon Court Hand because in the medieval period Arabic numerals do not appear to any considerable extent in English Archives—indeed their appearance there at any date before the late fifteenth century may be taken as fairly strong evidence of foreign influence—and concerning Roman numerals there was little to say. Moreover the subject had been recently dealt with by Dr. Hill. But in the period after 1500 Arabic figures begin slowly to fight their way into English Archives—i. e. into business writings; and since this (the Archive) class of documents is precisely that which was more or less closed to Dr. Hill it seems worth while to indicate in a preliminary sketch the types of document which may be of use to any student interested in further research along these lines; and to give the results of some tentative examination of them by the present writer, even when these are negative. The questions of interest are—where and when do Arabic figures make their entry into English Archives ? how far are they affected by being used in conjunction with the special Set Hands which were such a feature of Archive writing in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? how far do they retain any of the primitive forms ? and can these be used at all as criteria for dating ?

Works of art dating from the Early Iron Age of Britain have an interest proportionate to their scarcity, and two examples to be added to the list are destined for public museums. The Society is privileged to examine them before they leave London for their permanent homes in the West.

The phenomenal progress made during the last twenty years in road-making and maintenance is common knowledge. In no other sphere of the country's public activities has so great an advance been made in such a short time. The rapid progress is due largely to the wise and active co-operation of the Ministry of Transport and the considerable financial help derived from the taxation of motor vehicles.

In his history of the parishes of Minchinhampton and Avening, Gloucestershire, published in 1915, the late Mr. A. T. Playne gave a description and illustration of a medieval bell which had for some time been in the possession of his family, but which was quite unknown to campanologists, in spite of its exceptional interest. My curiosity was roused, as dated medieval bells are very rare, and I took the first opportunity that offered of visiting Minchinhampton in order to examine the bell personally. Previous to my visit in August 1923, Mr. Playne had died, and the bell had been given by his representatives to the parish church, where it has been conveniently placed in the south transept.

In the year 1456 a certain English parish priest, making the pilgrimage to the great shrine of St. James at Santiago de Compostela, took with him an English retable of wood with panels of carved alabaster, and gave it to the cathedral containing the shrine, A document, written in Gallegan Spanish and still in being, sets forth how there appeared before its writer, with witnesses, at the high altar, on the 25th day of May, 1456, ‘a man who said that he was of the nation of the Kingdom of England, by name called Johanes Gudguar, rector of the church of Cheilinvvintour diocese ’, who, for service of God and reverence for the very holy Apostle ‘Sebedeu ’, and for the benefit of his sins, gave to the Compostelan church a retable of wood with figures of alabaster, painted with gold and blue, setting forth the history of the said holy Apostle.