PROCEEDINGS OF THE COTTESWOLD CLUB 199 



roof has eight covered ribs springing from the octagon, 

 and ending in the lantern. There are only three erections 

 of the kind known, and one only resides thus in this 

 country. 



The Abbey Barn, 1420, a cruciform building, with the 

 fine original timbered roof, and still occupied, with a farm 

 just outside the Abbey walls, was also very much admired. 



After luncheon at the " Pilgrims' Inn," a quaint building 

 dating from 1475, the party visited the Museum, under 

 the guidance of Mr A. Bulleid, and some time was spent 

 in examining the various interesting objects it contains, 

 especially those recently discovered in the ancient British 

 village about a mile and a half from the town. Pro- 

 minently among these was a flat-bottomed canoe, worked 

 out of a single log of oak. This canoe was the cause of the 

 discovery of the village. It w^as deeply bedded in the 

 peat, and its prow projected out into one of the ditches 

 used for draining the land. These ditches are periodically 

 cleaned, and the men who did this work had long knowMi 

 of the existence of what they thought was a solid block 

 of timber ; one day, however, they happened to call Mr 

 Bulleid's attention to it, when a short examination showed 

 him it was no ordinary piece of timber, and he had the 

 peat covering it dug away, and the whole canoe was thus 

 exposed. This discovery led him to make further inves- 

 tigations, and his attention was attracted to some slight 

 mounds in a field a few hundred yards away from where 

 the canoe was found. Excavations revealed the fact that 

 each one of these mounds was the site of a hut dwelling, 

 and that the whole collection represented an encampment 

 of very considerable extent. Each hut was built on logs 

 laid flat on the morass, and coated over with clay. 

 Embedded in this in the centre of each hut were several 

 flat stones forming the hearth, and outside each hut were 

 two or three stones still in situ, over which the original 

 inhabitants stepped to their homes. Each hut is built 



