46 On a Leaden “ Bulla,’ found at Warminster. 
It would be interesting to ascertain whether, in a collection of 
Papal Bulls, eg., Bullarium Magnum Romanum, or elsewhere, any 
Bull of Pope Boniface the Ninth is extant, which could be locally 
connected with Warminster, or the immediate neighbourhood. Sir 
Richard Colt Hoare, in his Hundred of Mere, quotes a Bull of this 
Pope granted to the Priory of Maiden Bradley. 
The name of the town Warminster is usually supposed to mean 
the minster or monastery on the river Ware, which flows past the 
parish Church of St. Denys. A “ Nunnery” formerly stood nearly 
on the site of the present Manor House, near the said Church, and 
Sir Richard Colt Hoare mentions that, when this nunnery was taken 
down, about 1790, some old coins were found and a curious figure 
of a pilgrim, of which he gives an engraving. Possibly some of the 
earth for the formation of the above-mentioned terrace, at the bottom 
of which the Bulla was found, may have been carted from the site 
of the old Nunnery. The sloping path on the side of Warminster 
Down is still called “ Nun’s Path.” 
Unfortunately there is no mention of the Warminster Monastery 
or Nunnery in Dugdale’s Monasticon, or Bishop Tanner’s Notitia 
Monastica. 
I have been favoured by the Rev. Prebendary Clerk, of Kingston 
Deverill, with the sight of a beautiful silver coin of Pope Sixtus the 
Fourth, elected A.D. 1471, died 1484. This coin has on the reverse 
two highly-finished full-length figures of St. Paul and St. Peter, in 
the same relative positions as the heads on the Bulla, and the same 
distinction is observed in the shape of their beards. 
I beg to send for the use of the Society; a fac-simile, in lead, of 
the Warminster Bulla, with a photogram of obverse and reverse, 
and also a photogram of the said coin as an illustration. 
JoHn Baron. 
Upton Scudamore Rectory, 
22nd August, 1876. 
