Moolho^t ^aimaMs fm Club. 



July 19th, 1889. 



The third Field Meeting was held on Friday, July 19th. The members advanced 

 upon ClifEord Castle in two detachments ; those who travelled to Hay proceeded 

 thence by the Golden Valley Railway, whilst those members who lived in the 

 western part of the county reached Clifford by the same railway from its other 

 terminus at Pontrilas. 



An excellent paper on "Clifford Castle" was read by the Rev. T. W. 

 Walwyn Tnmiper, and the character of its military defences was pointed out in 

 detail. The Cliffords appear in The Battle Abbey Roll, originally under the name 

 of Pounce, De Pons, or Poins, before they became castellans of Clifford Castle. 

 They were of a race ever engaged in "fighting in France," or "quelling the 

 Scotch," a family whose boast it was that "of half a score of successive barons 

 only one had been unhappy enough to die in his bed." 



Mr. Walwyn Trumper afterwards conducted the visitors to his vicarage. 

 Here was seen, preserved underneath a glass case, and in a charred condition, a 

 fragment of the oak stake upon which John Hooper, the Protestant Bishop of 

 Gloucester, was burned to death on February 'Jth, 1555, on a spot just outside the 

 Cathedral precincts, formerly known as "St. Mary's Knapp." Three centuries 

 after that date during some alterations at that mound, amidst a quantity of wood 

 ashes, a charred stake of oak, over 20 inches long, and 9 inches in diameter, was 

 discovered two feet below the surface, tightly rammed down with stones. After 

 passing through several hands, this stake was presented to the County Museum at 

 Gloucester. The identification of the site of this discovery with the place selected 

 for Hooper's burning in accordance with Queen Mary Tudor 's order as the nearest 

 pcssible to the scene of his former preaching, i.e., the Cathedral, has been lucidly 

 confirmed in a learned paper by John Bellows, of Gloucester, read by him at the 

 Annual Meeting of the Cotteswold Club at Gloucester, 1878, and recorded in the 

 Proceedings of the Cotteswold Naturalists' Field Club for 1877—1878. 



From the vicarage the members went to the Church, concerning which a few 

 notes were read by the Vicar. On the sundial in the Churchyard is an inscrip- 

 tion stating that it is erected above the grave of John and Mary Stallard : — 



Learn from the shadow of the dial 

 How quick our hours onward move : 



Be mindful in this state of tryal 

 Every moment to improve. 



Nasci/niur ; atq : statim cippo strU nonien inane, 

 Gnonionia ul vitce praterit utnbra cito. 



