COINS RECENTLY DISCOVERED AT HOLY ISLAND. 169 



On the Foundations of Ancient Buildings ^ and Coins of tlie Saxon 

 Kingdom of Northumhria, recently discovered at Holy Island. 

 By John S. Donaldson Selby, Esq. of Cheswick. 



In the month of June 1846, the foundations of what appear 

 to have been extensive buildings were discovered by the workmen 

 employed in forming a railway near to that part of Holy Island 

 where the links and sandhills, called the Snook, are united to the 

 enclosed and cultivated part of the island. These ruins, having 

 for centuries been overwhelmed with sand, which here shifts with 

 every high wind, were, during the last spring, uncovered, and 

 again brought to light, by the prevalence, for a considerable 

 time, of strong easterly winds, and thus oflfered to the workmen 

 an opportunity to procure stones for the buildings and works on 

 which they were employed, more easily and less expensively than 

 from the adjoining quarries. These foundations indicate the 

 former existence of buildings of considerable extent and impor- 

 tance, covering an area of 312 feet in length from east to west, 

 by 341 feet in width from north to south, and are divided by 

 cross walls into numerous divisions and compartments. The stones 

 are loose and irregularly shaped, and appear to have been put to- 

 gether without moi'tar. About sixty yards from the southern end of 

 these foundations, and on the top of the quarry from whence the 

 stones forming the same appear to have been procured (being all 

 of the blue encrinal limestone so abundant at Holy Island), the 

 foundations of another building were discovered ; and near to 

 this spot were found two coins, composed of mixed metal, one of 

 which is a styca of the coinage of -^thelred King of Northumbria, 

 and the other a styca of Vigmund, Archbishop of York. The 

 Saxon kingdom of Northumbria was composed of the united 

 Roman provinces of Bernicia and Deira, and extended from the 

 Humber to the Firth of Forth (whence the present name Nor- 

 thumberland — that is " land" " north" of the " Humber"), and 

 from the German Ocean to the Irish Sea. It was governed by a 

 series of Saxon monarchs, thirty four or thirty six in number-— 

 from Ella, who joine<l the two provinces in a.d. 587, to Eric who 



