90 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2«'dS. VII. Jan. 29.'69. 



adding the Second Chapter. I have some other 

 pieces in prose by the same author, who I take 

 to have been a dissenting minister, and shall be 

 glad if any reader of " N. & Q." will point out 

 where any information regarding him can be had. 



J. O. 



Bev. Timothy Shepherd. — Can any correspon- 

 dent give any account of this minister ? He was 

 one of two candidates for the pastoral office of the 

 old Presbyterian Meeting, Jewry Street, London, 

 in 1698, and had the majority by one vote, but 

 the election was overruled in favour of Dr. "W. 

 Harris, which occasioned Mr. Shepherd to re- 

 move to Braintree in Essex. He was the author 

 of part of the " Penitential Cries " appended to 

 John Mason's Songs of Praise to Almighty God.* 



Z. 



St. PauVs Visit to Britain. — At the request of 

 several friends I copy the following from the 

 Christian Iteflecto7% published by F. B. Wright, 

 Liverpool, September 1, 1825, in the hope you 

 will insert it in your valuable paper, that it may 

 lead to a sifting investigation and be exposed as a 

 fabrication, or confirmed as a fact, for the satis- 

 faction of the public : — 



" The Apostle Paul's Preaching in Britain. 



" Sirs, — In some of your late numbers, you have in- 

 serted an important and interesting paper on tlie intro- 

 duction of the Gospel into Britain. By the kindness of 

 a valued friend I have been favoured with the following 

 article, translated from the Welsh, which illustrates and 

 confirms, if I mistake not, the supposition contained in 

 the paper to which I have alluded. It may be relied on, 

 I understand, as authentic. 



« On the 8th of March last (1825), J. J. Ilolford, Esq., 

 of Cilgwn, near Llandovery, in Carmarthenshire, with 

 the assistance of his tenants and neighbours, were re- 

 moving one of the Ffeini Hirian, or long stones placed on 

 a part of his estate, a large stone of extraordinary size. 

 After having digged around it by the strength of twentj'- 

 five horses and the unremitting labour of the men, they 

 at length succeeded, when to their great surprise they 

 found under it a smaller stone, eighteen inches in length, 

 seven and a half inches in breadth, and two and a quarter 

 inches thick, with an inscription in old Welsh characters, 

 and in the Welsh language, signifying that St. Paul had 

 preached on that spot in the year of Christ 68, Mr. Hol- 

 ford as an antiquarian and a lover of his country, had 

 the smaller stone carefully conve3-ed to his house, and 

 the larger one, which is between nine and ten tons weight, 

 fixed in the lawn near his house. It is a very fine marble 

 stone of a reddish colour, variegated with bluish veins. 

 Mr. Holford was induced from this circumstance to open 

 some tumuli in the neighbourhood. In one of them, at a 

 depth of nine feet, were found two urns made of fine clay, 

 curiously carved or moulded. In raising them, one was 

 broken, which contained human bones intermingled with 

 the ashes of wood. Under one of the urns was a stone, 

 with an inscription denoting that in that place were de- 



[* William Ford published A Sermon occasioned hy the 

 Death of the Rev. Timothy Shepherd, preached at Brain- 

 tree, May 22, 1733. 12mo.] 



posited the ashes of Lapus, the pious Bishop of Tre- 

 castle, who was buried in the year of our Lord 427." 



If these particulars be authentic, will they not 

 go far to settle the disputed point of St, Paul's 

 having laboured in Britain ? A. U. C. 



[It is now well known in the locality to which the 

 above-mentioned communication refers, that the stones 

 in question were prepared for the nonce by a clerical gen- 

 tleman, who formerly resided in the neighbourhood of 

 Llandoverj', and was no less distinguished for his eccen- 

 tricity of' dress than behaviour. The late excellent 

 Bishop Burgess strenuously maintained, both in his con- 

 versation and writings, that St. Paul was the first to 

 preach the glad tidings of salvation in this country. In 

 order, therefore, to gratify the peculiar prejudices of his 

 amiable, but too credulous diocesan, as well as the na- 

 tional vanity of Welshmen, the reverend gentleman al- 

 luded to practised his extraordinary hoax. The larger 

 stone of the two was, of course, too cumbrous for distant 

 removal ; but the smaller one, falling to the lot of the 

 bishop, was (it is said) presented by him, together with 

 an elaborate memoir of the circumstances attending its 

 discovery, &c., to the University of Oxford, and deposited 

 by the grateful authorities in the Ashmolean Museum. 

 Thousands of enthusiasts flocked to the supposed locality 

 of the Apostle's first labours in Britain ; a tavern-keepeif 

 at Llandovery realised enormous profits by the sale of 

 his liquors to the thirsting pilgrims, and a chapel was 

 built upon the site, by public subscription, to perpe- 

 tuate the interesting event. Perceiving the extraordi- 

 nary effect of his experiment, the reverend wag shortly 

 afterwards deposited, near the same spot, a steel dagger 

 and scabbard, the latter covered with crimson velvet, and 

 elaborately embroidered with gold-twist, which a few of 

 the obstinately credulous in the neighbourhood believed 

 to haye formerly belonged to an ancient British warrior ! 

 The minds of the majority, however, were by this time 

 fully awakened to the gross impositions practised upon 

 them ; and they naturally desired that all remembrance 

 of them should sink, if possible, into oblivion, — an ex- 

 ample which has been followed by the bishop's bio- 

 grapher.] 



Death of Earl of Wanoich the King Maker. — 

 What was the place of the death of Warwick, the 

 King Maker, at the battle of Barnet. There is a 

 column at Rabies in the parish of Ridge, Hert- 

 fordshire, which, according to local tradition, 

 marks the place to which he fled after the battle, 

 but this seems to be hardly borne out by refer- 

 ence to the various chroniclers of that period. 



Enquirek. 



[The Earl undoubtedly fell in the battle named after 

 the town of Barnet; but which was really fought on 

 Gladsmore Heath towards St. Albans, on the 14th April 

 (Easter day), 1471. After his victory, Edward IV. had 

 the dead bodies of Warwick and his brother Montacute 

 conveyed to London, where they were exposed " bare- 

 faced " for three days in St. Paul's Church, so " that no 

 pretences of their being alive might stir up any rebellion 

 afterwards." The bodies were subsequently transferred to 

 Bitham in Berkshire, and interred in the tombs of the 

 Montacutes. Vide Habington's Life and Reign of Ed- 

 ward IV. in Kennett's History of England, i. 449-50.] 



Meaning of Church Pitle. — One of the glebe 

 fields, a small meadow adjoining the churchyard, 

 of Ashen, Essex, is called Church Pitle. What is 



