78 
buyers did not recognise their marks and looked for the leopard’s 
head. The Act of 1700 recreated the offices at York, Exeter, 
Norwich, Bristol and Chester, and in 1702 Newcastle was again 
revived. Bristol never took any action in the matter, and Bristol 
wares are not known to exist. Norwich, known by its castle and 
lion, has long been dead. York died out in 1772, but has since 
revived into a weak existence. Exeter, known in old times by a 
crowned X and now by a castle with wings, is still working on a 
small scale. Chester, which did not use the present mark till 
1775, is still busy with the watch trade. In 1772 an Act for 
erecting the great offices at Sheffield and Birmingham says that 
no offices were then in existence except London, Chester, Exeter 
and Newcastle. There are, however, some curious old marks 
which inquirers have not yet been able to assign to any certain 
place, and they may have been rather maker's marks than assay 
marks. There are several of these in the West, a few are as- 
signed by some collectors to Exeter, one to Barnstaple, and one, 
aT anda tun, to Taunton. This last is more likely to be the 
mark of a maker at Taunton than of a public assay, the seal of 
the ancient and extinct Corporation of Taunton bearing, as so 
many others do, the figure of a castle. These rare marks are 
very valuable. It is not difficult to guess how work of this sort 
came to be established at Taunton and Barnstaple, for in the 
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the miners along the north 
coast of Somerset and Devon, and particularly about Combe 
Martin, made occasionally what would now be considered enor- 
mous finds of silver. To this English silver, wars and shipwrecks 
and more regular commerce through Bideford and Exeter, must 
have added a considerable quantity. 
I have now given you certain rough land-marks by which to 
know the places and dates of your silver wares. From 1697 to 
1720 you remember the leopard’s head was suspended in favour 
of Britannia and a lion’s head. In 1773 the Birmingham anchor 
and the Sheffield crown are first found, and in 1784 the king’s 
