account of Avebury Church is fairly adequate, as also is that of the Circles. Yatesbury is dismissed in a couple of pages, the descent of the property being very shortly traced and a word or two said about the

Clerestory Windows.

Church. Under the head of Compton Bassett we have a good deal of information as to the descent of the property; the hour-glass in the Church is well described; and the statement is made that the stone screen and loft are said to have been brought from a side aisle of Winchester Cathedral. What authority has the author for this? The bells, too,

are described, and their marks carefully illustrated, indeed throughout this latter part of the book the bells are more accurately described, and are evidently of more interest to the author than any other feature of the Churches.

The account of Hilmarton is fuller and better than that of most of the other places dealt with; the Goatacre Corn Law meeting of 1846 is dwelt on at some length, and a number of interesting entries concerning the bells are given from the churchwardens' accounts.

The remarkable ambulatory from the N. aisle to the chancel with the rood loft steps within it is shown in the accompanying illustration of the Church.

Hilmarton Church. Screen from the Chancel

showing Squint, Ambulatory, and Rood Loft Stairs.

The architectural notes on Bradenstoke Priory by Mr. Brakspear are very full and good, describing the existing remains at length. Among other things he mentions that a handsome fireplace head which came from the-three storied building which formerly stood, as shown in Buck's engraving of 1750, at the south end of the existing range of buildings, was taken to Corsham Court and there erected in the billiard room, after long lying forgotten, in 1900. It contains the name of the prior at the beginning of Henry the Eighth's reign, T. Walshe, whose rebus is also found amongst the carved stones now built into a wall at Bradenstoke. The author notes that the cross which now stands close to the Church formerly stood on the edge of the hill.

Lyneham has the bell inscriptions and the execution of one Maskelyne in 1838, for the attempted murder of Mr. Bryan Rumboll, of Lyneham Court, as its two chief points of interest.'

Since the publication of the book the hitherto inexplicable inscription on the medieval bell at Lyneham has been identified by Canon Chr. Wordsworth as a part of the antiphon to Benedictus at Lauds of St. Thomas the Martyr in the Sarum Breviary, I., p. cclix. It should be read thus:-OPEM.: NOBIS: O: THOMA: PORRIGE. REGE: STANTES. [IACENTES: ERIGE.]

Taking the book as a whole, however, as has been said before, its real value lies in the part which is concerned with Calne itself. It is true that the earlier history of the place-we get as far as the 16th century in the first forty pages-is taken almost entirely from other books and

contains very little indeed that is new, but the municipal history from the 16th century onwards is treated very fully and satisfactorily. Indeed this is the best and strongest part of the book. The "obnoxious' charter of James II., which was never acknowledged by the burgesses, is printed in full in the appendix, from a copy at the Record Office. A great part of the matter given in this connection comes from the "Burgus Book or Book of th' accompte " begun by Philip Rich, town clerk and vicar in 1561, which contains 500 or 600 pages, and records the receipts and payments of the guild stewards, and is also occasionally used as the minute book of the corporation.

All this portion of the book, as well as the appendices containing extracts from lay subsidies and other rolls, showing the names of the inhabitants of Calne in the reigns of Edward III., Henry VIII., Edward VI., Elizabeth, and Charles I.-indents of guild stewards and mayors from 1561 onwards-and the list of M.P.s from 1295 to 1885-contains a mass of information which is not to be found elsewhere.

The chapter on the architecture of the Church, written by Mr. Brakspear, is again full and valuable. He is inclined to think that the jamb and springer of a window visible in the wall above the second pier of the nave arcade on the north side may be the sole remains of the Saxon Church mentioned as existing here in Domesday.

The ecclesiastical history of the prebend of Calne is also fairly fully dealt with. The chantries of St. Mary Magdalene and the B.V.M. founded in the Parish Church by John St. Lo; the benefaction of Sir

Robert Hungerford in 1336, giving to the Hospital and Priory of St. John the Baptist "juxta Eldebrook," near the town of Calne, 40 acres in Stock, Stockley, Quemerford, and Tasworth, on condition that mass was said every day except Sundays and festivals at St. Edmund's altar

in the Parish Church, for the soul of his mother; translations of the original terrier setting forth the visitation of Calne by the Dean of Sarum as ordinary in 1405, and of the deed of augmentation of the vicarage, executed in 1375, are among the most interesting points.

The history of Nonconformity in the place is also gone into, and in this connection it is interesting to find that the Baptists still use the pewter plates and cups which were given for the communion service by Mr. Cue, of Compton Bassett, in 1710. It is worth while noting, too, that Mr. Taylor, Baptist minister in 1776, states in his journal that the Baptists, who under Charles II. were debarred from assembling at their usual place of meeting, met sometimes under a white thorn bush near Upper Whitley, which until 1803-when it disappeared-was known as "Gospel Bush." 1

Some interesting extracts from the churchwardens' accounts are given in the appendix. Amongst them a couple of notices of the Church plate: "one Challyce all Gylte wth a cover" being mentioned in the inventory of V. Ed. VI., the said chalice being apparently mentioned again in 1576, thus: "Received of Wm Goodwyne the Gouldsmythe when the Communion Cupp was made of the old Challyce as overplus in weighte xvij." This is the first documentary evidence that has come to light of the fact

Does not this suggest that the "Gospel Oaks," &c., which have been supposed by the Bishop of Bristol and others to point back to a remote period when Christianity was first being introduced into England, are in many cases more likely really to derive their name from the Nonconformists of the 17th century ?-E.H.G.

so apparent from the study of the hall-marks of the Elizabethan Communion cups in Wiltshire, that the date of the conversion of the "massing chalice," into the Communion cup in this county was in a large number of cases 1576.

Another item of interest is the entry in 1789: "Pd for the Parson's umbrella 0=14=0," which was doubtless not for the parson's personal use, but for that of the parish.

The charities, schools, &c., are adequately written of, but the family history of the place has but 20 pages assigned to it, and is really hardly touched on. There are, however, pedigrees of Merewether and Ernle, and some account of the Fynamores of Whetham. In connection with the Blakes of Pinhills it is mentioned that in the farmhouse which succeeded the old moated mansion destroyed by Col. Lloyd on Dec. 28th, 1643, the first vaccination performed in England is said to have taken place. It should be noted that the illustration of the borough seal on page 66 purporting to be a copy of the illustration in the Visitation of Wiltshire of 1623 is not so in point of fact, the name of the place appearing as CALM instead of CALN, as it should be.

The publisher has been very generous in the matter of illustrations, both in process blocks from photos, which vary a good deal in their quality, and in pen-and-ink drawings by Miss May, some of which are very pleasing. They are: Calne: Bird's-eye View of; Old Butcher Row; Facsimile of Elizabethan Burgess Oath; Church Interior; Old Town Hall; Castle House Exterior, Carved Stone Chimneypiece and Oak Panelling, and Stained Glass Window; the Church Exterior, Interior, Roof of Nave, Ceiling of North Porch, Rere Arch of North Door, Groundplan, Parish Chest; Map showing Common Lands in 1813; Lodge Entrance to Bowood Drives; a Bit of Calne Green; New Town Hall; Courtyard of Lansdown Arms; Borough Arms and Seal (2); Stocks; Chavey Well Bridges; Snuff-box and Loving Cup belonging to Corporation; Moss's Mill; Boys' School and Green; Bowood House, Bowood Park; Spye Park Gateway; Lacock Abbey, View from S.E., South Side, the Cloister; Nuns' Cauldron; Lacock Village, Ancient Houses (2); Maud Heath's Monument; Kelloway's Sundial and a bit of the Causey; Moravian Settlement, East Tytherton; Bradenstoke, Priory Undercroft, North Side Exterior, the Whitefield Chapel; Hilmarton Church, Exterior, and Interior showing Screen and Squint; Foxham Church; Bromham Churchyard, Moore's Tomb, Church Exterior; Sloperton Cottage; Blackland House, The Great Oak, Church; Heddington Church; the Wansdyke; Cherhill, Barn Interior, Oldbury Camp and Cherhill White Horse, Marks on Bells; Calstone Church Exterior, Porch Niche; Avebury. Remains of Circles and Vallum, Remains of the "Cove," Church Interior showing Saxon Windows, Font; Silbury Hill; Stonehenge ; Yatesbury Font; Compton Bassett Church Rood Screen, Half-Hour Glass, House, Marks on Bells; Beckhampton Gibbet; Bremhill Church Exterior, Gargoyles, Village Cross, Churchyard Cross; Lyneham, Marks on Bells; Derry Hill, Porch at; Portraits of John Pym and Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice.

VOL. XXXIII.-NO. CI.

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