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and an excellent mason, and for twenty years or thereabouts this man worked upon the Castle at his own sweet will. There was nobody to say nay or to control him, and it was a fact that at this moment every one of the new battlements which deface the structure was constructed, not out of local stone, but out of York stone especially procured for the purpose.

"There is a proposal now coming forward about Carnarvon Castle to the effect that the Castle shall be used for what are called National purposes, by restoring the banqueting hall, and making it into a National Museum and Picture Gallery for Wales. Everybody must desire to see a national museum and picture gallery for Wales, but can you conceive anything more unfortunate than that Carnarvon Castle should be used for that purpose? If it were not for the fact that we have got hold of the Castle, I have not the least doubt that some prominent man would come forward-because Wales is a rich country-and would provide money which would enable people to build an incongruous edifice absolutely out of harmony with the remainder of the Castle."

THE MEDIEVAL HISTORY OF THE WELSH BOROUGHS.--Attention is called in an admirable article by Mr. E. A. Lewis, D.Sc., in the most useful Journal of the Welsh Bibliographical Society, to the neglect of the municipal aspect, especially of the medieval borough, in most histories of towns and castles. All treat exclusively of these places from their external and political aspect. There is an interesting disquisition on the name of the town, the connection of the place and its surroundings with the Roman civilization and the various vicissitudes experienced during the struggle between the Welsh princes and the Norman lords. The later mediæval story is woven around the petty and national revolts of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and references are made to the incidents of the Civil War. But the strictly municipal history of the borough is subordinated to the story of the Castle and its Constables. Valuable materials are waiting to be dealt with. The Chamberlain Accounts, from the time of Edward I to the reign of Henry VIII, throw a flood of light on the administrative and commercial sides of the main boroughs of the Principality. The King's Remembrancer Accounts provide useful information in local shipping. The Lay Subsidies tell much of the economic status of the boroughs. Will any of our members take up the subject and send in to Arch. Camb. the result of their labours?

CAMBRIAN ARCHEOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION
Treasurer's Statement of Account, 1911.

RECEIPTS.

£ s. d.

Balance at Capital and Counties Bank, Limited, Swansea

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INVESTMENTS, JANUARY, 1912.

Consols standing in names of present Trustees, Col.
W. Gwynne Hughes, J. W. Willis Bund, Esq.,
Charles Salusbury Mainwaring, Esq.

£948 10 7

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£330 17 10

W. LLEW. MORGAN, Hon. Treasurer.

Hon.

A. FOULKES-ROBERTS, f Auditors.

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Treasurer's Statement for the Year ending 31st December, 1911.

RECEIPTS.

£ s. d.

Balance at Capital and Counties Bank, Limited, Swansea, as per last Account 42 17 10

PAYMENTS.

1911. December 31st. To Balance down to this date

£ s. d. 42 17 10

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1911.

PEMBROKESHIRE ARCHEOLOGICAL SURVEY Treasurer's Statement for the Year ending 31st December, 1911.

RECEIPTS.

January 1st. Balance at Capital and Counties Bank, Limited, Swansea, as per last Account

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Archaeologia Cambrensis

SIXTH SERIES.-VOL. XII, PART IV

OCTOBER, 1912

A PREHISTORIC BURIAL-PLACE IN

CARDIGANSHIRE

BY E. LORIMER THOMAS, M. A (OxON.)

(Continued from "Arch. Camb.," July, 1910)

THE discovery of a prehistoric burial-ground at Gors Goch, in the parish of Llanwenog, is entirely due to the intelligence of Messrs. Evan and Jenkin Davies of Gors Villa, who noticed fragments of a cinerary urn, accidentally turned up by the plough, and carefully preserved them for inspection by their nephew, Dr. Evan Evans of Lampeter.

These fragments were forwarded to Professor Boyd Dawkins, who pronounced them to be undoubtedly of the Bronze Age.

A small Society, calling itself "The Silurian Prehistoric Society," was subsequently formed at Lampeter in order to supervise excavations, and to put on record any further discoveries.

This ancient burial ground extended for about 100 yards, as far as is at present known, on ground overlooking the margin of a now vanished lake, over a mile long, and S-shaped, lying in a plateau from 800 ft. to 1000 ft. above the level of the sea. site of this lake, which can easily be traced on the Ordnance Map, or any good map such as Bartholomew's Survey Atlas, is now partly a peat bog, the surface of

6TH SER., VOL. XII.

23

The

which has been steadily lowered by generations of peat

cutters.

The south end terminated at the watershed near Clun Meherin, where a tributary of the Cleddyn rises, joining the Teify near High Mead.

The north end and outlet of the lake was once blocked by a natural dam of rock. This has been pierced by a tributary of the Grannell, the Afon Las, which flows in an opposite direction to the Cleddyn, and now drains the Gors Goch peat-bog and adjacent

moor.

The discovery of urns near Capel Cynon in 1905,1 and more recently at Gors Goch, proves that on the highlands of Cardiganshire, separated by the valley of the Clettwr Fawr, and lying inside a triangle drawn through Lampeter, Llandyssul and New Quay, there once lived a population who cremated their dead. To this triangle must be added, on the south, the Carmarthenshire parishes of Llangeler, Penboyr, Cenarth, Cilrhedyn and Cynwyl; on the east the district about Craig Twrch, and on the south-west the district about Glyn Cuch.

Sepulchral urns have been found in burial-places in most of these parishes. This is probably a very small percentage of the burial-places which exist undiscovered, or which have been dispersed by farmers and builders and by wholesale rifling in search of gold or coins. This we know from a writer in Yr Haul for 1845, p. 246, to have been the case in the parishes of Llangeler and Penboyr.

The following facts seem to justify the statement that South Cardiganshire and North Carmarthenshire were, at any rate in the earlier part of the Bronze Age, as thickly populated as any other part of Britain.

(a) Their extensive seaboard in an age when sailing was probably as safe as land-travel. (Navigation seems to have been more extensively practised than is usually Ibid., July, 1910.

1 Arch. Camb., 1905.
3 See Arch. Camb., 1864.

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