Jump to content

Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 1.djvu/409

From Wikisource
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE COMMITTEE.
391

The height I forgot to measure, but think it is nearly three yards. The thickness of the wall on its south side is at least 38 inches. The floor of the cellar is about 6 feet below the level of the street. I have forgot to mention, that the arches are divided by a space of from 29 to 32 inches. Thus far I have given you the facts; conjectures about the origin of this singular and (to me) mysterious remain, I leave to be made by your better-informed friends.

"I may add, that the street in which the relic was discovered, is called Town-hall-lane. Formerly, I learn, it was known as Holyrood-lane, and the neighbouring church, now St. Martin's, was designated St. Cross. The Town-hall, a building of the Elizabethan era, is nearly opposite—its western extremity is exactly opposite the old house under which the cellar is situated.

"The original level of the ground (before the made earth had accumulated) would not, it seems to me, have been less in depth than that which lies between the level of the street and the floor of the cellar. In some parts of the town the made earth lies much deeper than six or seven feet."

November 13.

Mr. John Dennett, of New Village, Isle of Wight, presented, through Mr. Smith, a rubbing of a sepulchral brass of a knight of the fourteenth century, in Calbourne church. Isle of Wight. "The brass," Mr. Dennett states, "has been broken in several places, and is badly embedded in a new stone, very uneven; in some places it is above, and in others considerably below, the surface of the stone. It is no longer in its original place, having been removed during the late rebuilding of the church. It was in a slab of Purbeck marble, which covered an altar-tomb close to the south transept, which has been pulled down, and the tomb in consequence destroyed. It seems that an inscription and date was cut on the marble, but not a fragment of the slab is to be found. The effigies probably represents one of the Montacutes, carls of Salisbury, the ancient possessors of Calbourne, from a female descendant of whom the property came by marriage to the Barrington family." Mr. Smith observed that Mr. J. G. Waller, editor of the "Monumental Brasses," from a peculiarity in the execution of this brass, as well as from a striking resemblance of features, believes it to have been engraved by the same artist as one in Harrow church, Middlesex, to the memory of John Flambard, and another to the memory of Robert Grey, at Rotherfield Greys, Oxfordshire: the latter bears the date of 1387.

Mr. W. H. Brooke, of Hastings, exhibited a drawing of a monumental brass just discovered beneath the flooring of the second corporation-pew in the chancel of All Saints church, Hastings. It represents a burgess and his wife, the figures being two feet one inch in length. Above them is the word Ehesus in an encircled quatrefoil, and beneath an inscription:—"Here under thys ston lyeth the bodys of Thomas Goodenouth somtyme burges of thys towne and Margaret his wyf of whose soules of your charite say a pater noster and a ave." There is no date, but from the costume of the figures this monument may be assigned to the latter part of the fifteenth century.

Sir Henry Ellis communicated a document from a chartulary of the priory of Carisbrook, relating to the founding and dedication of Chale church, in the Isle of Wight. Sir Henry remarked that the late Sir Richard Worsley possessed another register of the deeds of Carisbrook priory, from which, in his "History of the Isle