date, as the early brick wall of the Chancel. The foundations of both are precisely similar, and are constructively bonded together. The walls rest upon a footing-course of one brick, which forms the top of a shallow foundation of flints and stones. The brickfooting is continued along the Chancel Wall under the sill of the square-headed doorway, and is irregular in its projection.*

A careful examination of the existing face of the Chancel Wall above the remains, which was made by Mr. Livett, shews that the Eastern Wall of the adjunct above ground, now destroyed, was originally bonded into the Chancel Wall. Every alternate course shews a broken brick, and every other course the clean edge of a brick (see Sketch opposite p. 4).

This bonding cannot be traced above a line on a level with the lower edge of the lintel of the squareheaded doorway.

What was the purpose of this adjunct we cannot positively say. It was suggested by the late Archbishop of Canterbury (who took the warmest interest in the Church, and also keenly watched the progress of the excavations) that it was used for baking the Holy Bread employed at the Celebration of the Mass. But it may have been only a small side-chapel, with its Altar.

Supposing there to have been an Eastern Apse to the original Church, it must have started inwards a little beyond the pilaster buttress still to be seen in the middle of the S. Chancel Wall. But this point opens out a wide field for discussion, and fuller

* Cf. Photograph, reproduced by the courtesy of the Society of Antiquaries.

investigation may be necessary before it is finally determined.

Very little more need be said about the facts ascertained in the excavations. It is now generally conceded that the blocked doorway at the S. E. corner of the Nave, which is 6 ft. high and splayed externally (being 2 ft. 8 in. wide inside and 3 ft. wide outside the Church), is a later opening cut in the wall, and was not in the original building. When at the beginning of the explorations it was believed by some antiquarians that there was a Western Apse similar to that in the Christian Church at Silchester, and that the Arch (described in the account of the Western Wall of the Nave) opened into this Apse, the North-Eastern doorway was supposed to have been one of the entrances either to the Church or the Narthex. This theory seems to be now generally abandoned, but it is quite possible that further excavations beneath the Tower may give it a fresh lease of life.

The remarkable nearly circular panel outside the South Wall of the Nave, immediately behind the Norman piscina, has always been a puzzle. The dimensions of it, as now seen, are roughly 4 ft. by 3 ft. 8 in. It is sunk 6 ins. into the wall, is unevenly splayed, and in parts plastered. In Stukeley's engraving of the Church (1722 A.D.) it is represented as a round-headed doorway-but there are no voussoirs or arch-stones. The result of excavations beneath the surface are doubtful. Generally speaking, there are courses of two Roman tiles running along this part of the Nave Wall, below which are Kentish ragstones and a foundation of concrete. Singularly enough the top row of Roman tiles (just below the opening) has been interrupted for a space of 3 ft. 8 in., and it looks

at first sight as if the lower row were the sill of a doorway, from which a slight suspicion of a rough vertical joint goes upwards for a little distance. But the one tile course does not extend the whole width of the panel.

It would exhaust too much space if I were to enter into additional details, such as the question of the date of the buttresses in the S. Wall of the Nave. Certain archæologists have concluded that they are Norman, or, at any rate, of later date than the wall; but the discussion of this point is highly complicated, and requires much further consideration than it has yet received, and so it shall be left to another occasion, for there seems no chance of the whole controversy respecting the Architecture of the Church being closed for many years to come.

So far we have been simply placing on record certain facts which remain true whatever inference may be drawn from them, but before concluding this Article it seems necessary to say a few words on the controversy that has been carried on for some months with regard to the probable date of the building. Up to the year 1880 the opinion universally prevailing was the one stated by Mr. M. Bloxam, and repeated by Dean Stanley, that St. Martin's contained indeed Roman materials, but that they were not in situ, and had been merely used up again at the re-building of the Church during the latter part of the twelfth or the beginning of the thirteenth century. The present writer well remembers the somewhat mild astonishment that was expressed when it was suggested