COINS RECENTLY DISCOVERED AT HOLY ISLAND. 161 



Connecting the coins with the ancient foundations of buildings 

 near to which they were found, as before mentioned, I think we 

 are at liberty (and without a great stretch of imagination) to con- 

 jecture that they and the buildings are of equal antiquity, and 

 both referrible to a period of time, since when nearly a thousand 

 years have elapsed. The absence of mortar is not, of itself, a 

 suiHcicnt proof that no regular buildings were there, for dry stone 

 masonry was practised by the ancient Britons, as is satisfactorily 

 shewn by many specimens still visible in Somersetshire, Cornwall, 

 the Isle of Anglesea, and elsewhere. Many conjectures have 

 been made, and opinions formed, as to the uses to which these 

 buildings in Holy Island may have been put, and for what pur- 

 pose they were originally constructed. A village of fishermen 

 may have stood there, or it may have been inhabited by quarry- 

 men, when the limestone quarries in the immediate neighbour- 

 hood were anciently, as they have been very extensively, worked. 

 A circumstance, however, in connection with well-known facts, 

 has led me to form the opinion that these buildings have an- 

 ciently been occupied and used as storehouses and dwellings by 

 the kelp-burners, and those employed in the manufacture of kelp 

 from sea-weed, which was very extensively carried on at Holy 

 Island from an early period, and continued to be so until about 

 the year 1790, when, from the diminution of the profits of this 

 trade, arising from the introduction of Spanish barilla, and other 

 foreign alkaline productions, kelp ceased to be made at Holy 

 Island, as well as in the Scottish islands, where it had long been 

 a principal source of revenue to the landowners, and of employ- 

 ment to the poor inhabitants. I am inclined to assign this origin 

 to the ruins at Holy Island, from having discovered, all around 



Archaeologia, with the plates of the Saxon Stycas, is reprinted in the Archae- 

 ologia iEliana, vol. iii., Part 2, Nos. 11 and 12; and in the third edition of 

 Ruding's Annals. 



Of the stycas of Ethclred, 350 were found at Kirkoswald ; and of Vigmund, 58 

 And at Hexham, do, 2000 ; and of the Archbishop, . . . 800 



2350 858 



In ^thelred's mint were upwards of forty mintmasters ; and in Vigmund's 

 from six to eight. The styca of iEthelred found at Holy Island is similar 

 to one in Plate XLII., vol. xxv., p. 306., No 27 of the Archseologia. 



