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Hereford, excepting the castel, the which at Hereford is very spatiose. Peaces 
of the walles and turrets yet appere, prope fundamenta, and more should 
have appered, if the people of Hereford towne, and other therebowt had not yn 
tymes paste pulled downe muche and pyked out of the best for their buyldinges. 
Of late one Mr Brainton, buylding a place at Stratton, a myle from Kenchestre, 
did fetch much tayled stone there towards his buyldinges. . . . . . By 
lykelyhood men of old tyme went by Kenchestre to Hay and so to Brecnve and 
Cair Mardyn. The place wher the towne was ys al overgrowen with brambles, 
hasylles and lyke shrubbes. Neverthelesse, here and there yet appear ruines of 
buyldinges, of the which the folische people cawled one the King of Fayres 
chayre. Ther hath been fownd nostra memoria lateres Britannici ; et ex eisdem 
canales, aqueeductus, tesselata pavimenta, fragmentum catenule auree, calcar ex ar- 
gento, byside other strawnge thinges. To be short, of the decaye of Kenchestre 
Hereford rose and florishyd.” (Vol. vii., p. 152.) He adds also, ‘‘ At Ken- 
chestre was a palays of Offa, as sum say, the ruines yet remaine and vaults also. 
Sir John Lyngain was owner of the grownd, and now his heir.” Offa’s palace was 
at ‘Sutton Walls,” and so Leland was right in attributing the latter statement 
to mere rumour, 
Camden (1610) says of Kenchester that the town was an irregular hexagon, 
the south-west and south sides being the boldest ; the ground being higher than 
the surrounding lands, but without fosse or ditch. Nothing remains of its splend- 
our except not far from the east end, a piece of what was probably a temple, 
with a niche, which was five feet high, and three broad within, built of Roman 
brick, rough stones, and indissoluble mortar, and called ‘‘the chair.” Founda- 
tionsand holes as of vaults are scattered round it. 
Dr. Stukely (1722) gives a ground plan of Kenchester—which he thought to 
be Ariconium—and thus describes it :—‘‘ The site is a gentle eminence of a squar- 
ish form, the earth black and rich, overgrown with brambles and oaks, full of 
stone foundations and cavities, where many coins have been found.” (Itin. Cur., 
i., 66.) Dr. Stukely represents “the chair” on his plan architecturally over- 
drawn, and it has also been depicted in one of the landscape views in Britton 
and Brayley’s Beauties of England and Wales. These gentlemen say of it:— 
“Towards the east end is a massive fragment remaining of what is supposed to 
have beena Roman Temple. It consists of a large mass of cement, of almost in- 
dissoluble texture, in which are imbedded rough stones irregularly intermixed 
with others that have been squared. This fragment is called ‘ the chair’ from a 
niche which is yet perfect. The arch is principally constructed with Roman bricks, 
and over it are three layers of the same material, exposed lengthwise. Here (in 
1669) a tesselated pavement and stone floor were discovered ” 
In the succeeding year, 1670, Mr. Aubrey, in his manuscript notes, says old 
Roman buildings of brick were discovered upon which oaks grew. The bricks 
were of two sorts, some equilateral, seven or eight inches square and one inch 
thick, and some two feet square and three inches thick. About the same time a 
great vault was opened with a tesselated pavement, and Sir John Hoskyns also 
found an hypocaust about seven feet square, the leaden pipes entire ; some made 
