In the house of Sir Edmund Lechmere, known as Severn End, near Hanley Castle, Worcestershire, there has been preserved for a long time past the interesting Saxon funereal stone, which, through the owner's kindness, I am permitted to make known to readers of the Antiquaries Journal. Many have seen and admired it, but it has not yet been published. Its history is unknown except in so far as its presence at Severn End goes back beyond any memories or records, and may run to centuries. So housed, it has escaped many of the ills that carved Saxon stones are heirs to, and, as the photographs on pl. XXVII will show, is in a singularly good state of preservation. One most important fact about it is its material, which is the local oolite, so much used in the neighbouring Saxon church of Deerhurst, with which it has some artistic affinities, and it is not only a local product but is attested as of Saxon origin by its general character and details.

The churches of Great Britain might be regarded as monuments which have been so closely studied by antiquaries for well over a century that they could scarcely be expected to be a fruitful subject for new intensive investigation. But in fact the true story is quite different; the antiquarian interest of the past was largely concentrated on architectural history and while much of that field has indeed been well explored there are many other fields that have scarcely been touched. In January 1972, the Council for British Archaeology set up a Committee to co-ordinate and encourage archaeological research on places of worship in Great Britain, and in particular to develop a research policy which would include both pure research and also the recording of all archaeological evidence that might be endangered when places of worship and their sites are threatened with alteration whether in normal circumstances or because of change of use.

The object I propose to describe is a Disc of silver of very thin substance, being scarcely one-sixteenth of an inch thick, and beaten up from behind in the kind of metallic work called sphurelaton by the Greeks. It has apparently formed the top of a mirror-case, or box. (See Plate XXI.) The account of its discovery, which Mr. Vint, its possessor, has placed in my hands, is as follows :—“This bas-relief I purchased in Naples upwards of twenty years ago of a travelling jeweller, who collected and dealt in relics of antiquity. The following, to the best of my recollection, is the account he gave me of the place where it was found, and the manner in which it came into his possession. On one of his customary visits to Tarentum, in Calabria, he was invited by a silversmith, with whom he transacted business, to take some refreshment, and on entering a room behind the shop he observed this bas-relief placed against the wall, and two small lamps burning before it. Being at the very first sight sensible of its antiquity, he carefully asked the silversmith's wife, who was present, where it was found. Her answer was to this effect. Some excavators brought to their shop for sale a quantity of silver which they had found in digging among the ruins of the old city. On breaking up the mass her husband discovered these figures within it, and was about to put them into the crucible to melt them, when she snatched the rare relic from her husband, exclaiming with religious horror, ‘Would you melt the Madonna?’ Her husband confirmed his wife's account, and moreover stated it was soldered within a conical-shaped silver vase that was found covered up in the tight cavity of a large stone among the ruins of Tarentum.”

These Horns, as they are improperly called, being certainly the teeth of some very large sea fish, represented in the annexed plate, were given by King Henry I, to the Prior and Convent of Carlisle, when he enfeoffed them with the tythes of all assart lands within the forest of Englewood, to be held per quoddam cornu eburneum, as expressed in the following record. In like manner the keepership of Bernwood forest, together with the manor of Borstal, in the county of Buckingham, were granted in see by King Edward the Confessor; and the manor of Pusey, Berks, by King Canute the Dane, by the delivery of hunting horns, both which are preserved at Pusey and Borstal at this day.

The question of the artificial or natural origin of the flaking of the Harrisonian Eoliths of tabular form has been debated for many years. The problem is of considerable importance because Eoliths of this type have been found not only in deposits on the high plateau of Kent and in the Pliocene Bone Bed beneath the Red Crag of Suffolk but also in the Upper Miocene gravel at Aurillac, in the Cantal, France. Thus, if these specimens are flaked artificially, it means that intelligent beings were on this earth in very remote pre-Pleistocene times. As is known, certain investigators reject the idea that the Harrisonian Eoliths are intentionally flaked, and claim that they were fractured as the result of natural percussion or pressure. Other observers take the opposite view and not only believe these flints to have been intentionally flaked, but regard such an Eolithic stage as a fundamental necessity in the evolution of flint implements. From time to time the discoveries of isolated implements of Eolithic type have been made in Palaeolithic and later deposits, thus demonstrating the survival of these primitive forms long into Eolithic times.

In the year 1774, as some tinners were searching for tin in a stream-work near St. Austell, in the county of Cornwall, about 17 feet under the surface of the ground, they discovered a silver cup, which is now used for wine at the Communion Table, in which were several antient pieces of ornament, for a person of high rank, as represented in Pl. VIII. The cup was placed in a heap of loose stones, the refuse of an old tin-work, and covered with a common slate, where it was probably hid in troublesome times, either by the owner, or by some person who stole it. The quantity of earth and stone which had accumulated over the cup since it was deposited in the stream-work, shews that it had remained there for a great number of years. The cup was very thin and brittle, and fell into so many pieces as to prevent its being united. Besides the articles represented in the drawing, it contained many of the most curious Saxon coins ever discovered at one time. These with the other pieces of antiquity fell out in moving the ground, and some were probably lost in Shovelling about the rubbish. Those which were picked up were in a few hours disperst about the country, and many of them broken. The greatest part were afterwards collected; and are at Menabilly in Cornwall.

During the recent excavations on the site of Æsica a remarkable discovery of ancient relics was made. The deposit in question was contained inside the western guard-chamber of the south gate and about 3 feet from its northern wall. Unfortunately the discovery was made in the absence of any trained archaeologist and the data at our disposal are only of an approximate nature. The relics that have come to light consist of two large fibulæ (figs. 4 and 9), a silver collar or chain (fig. 1), a gold Roman ring (fig. 2) set with a moss agate, and another of bronze (fig. 3) set with a nicolo engraved with a gnostic subject, the familiar IAO.

I beg to have the honour of laying before the President and Members of the Society of Antiquaries what I cannot but deem a very interesting relic, an Impression from the Seal of Geoffrey Chaucer, perhaps the only impression which has descended to our times. I am sorry, however, that it is only a drawing from the original which is now produced; but the original itself will be shewn to any member of the Society who feels an interest about it.

Being last summer on a visit to my worthy friend Mr. Gell of Hopton, in Derbyshire, whose seat is in the parish of Worksworth, he was so obliging as to shew me some curious remains of British antiquities. I shall beg leave to trouble you with the description of these and some others of the like nature, and, if thought worthy of being communicated to the Society, must beg you will do me the honor to lay it before them.

I venture to think that bishop Reginald Fitzjocelin deserves a place of higher honour in the history of the diocese, and of the fabric of the church of Wells, than has hitherto been accorded to him.

His memory has been obscured by the traditionary fame of bishop Robert as the “author,” and of bishop Jocelin as the “finisher,” of the church of Wells; and the importance of his episcopate as a connecting link in the work of these two master-builders has been comparatively overlooked.