224 On a Sepulchral Vessel found near Marlborough. 
but notwithstanding the utmost care and tenderness it would not bear the smallest 
jar or shake, and it fell to pieces. Every bit of it which I could preserve is in 
the box I have the pleasure of sending to you; and what is in the box, not be- 
longing to the vessel, was found with several skeletons (human), a Roman 
tile, and the piece of pottery (the small cup), in the same field with the 
vessel, and only a few yards from it. Several coins, mostly Gallienus, or Valens 
or Constantine, were brought to me from the same spot. 
*T remain, Sir, 
“Your very obedient and humble Servant, 
“CHas. FRANCIS. 
P.S.—The person who took the drawing is Mr. Tuck of Marlbro’.” 
Some extracts from a note-book kept by Sir R. C. Hoare, and 
printed in vol. xxii. of this Magazine, confirm the above state- 
ments, and show that he was personally acquainted with the spot. 
“ Walked with Rev. Mr. Francis, of Mildenhall, to a spot on the 
left of the road from Marlboro’ to London, where several remarkable 
Roman antiquities have been found. It is a pasture land, and has 
produced many skeletons, and Roman coins are daily found by the 
labourers employed in digging and sifting gravel. A most singular 
vessel was found there about the year 1807, and the mutilated 
fragments are still preserved by Mr. Francis. It contained some 
burnt human bones, which seem to prove its having been formerly 
appropriated to sepulchral uses.” * 
Amongst the packages of antiquities received from Stourhead in 
1878 was a box of broken urns and various fragments. A piece of 
old bronze awakened a memory, and further examination showed 
that here were the remains of the funereal vessel found in St. 
Margaret’s mead, near Cunetio. On comparing these fragments 
with the original drawing, it is satisfactory to find that nearly all 
17The notice of this vessel in Wright’s “Celt, Roman, and Saxon,” p. 433, is 
singularly unfortunate. Itis not correct as to the date or as to the circumstances 
of the finding, nor is the character of the ornament accurately described ; more- 
over, a small engraving of it is given, side by side with an Anglo-Saxon bucket, 
‘only 74 inches high,” so that the reader is left to infer that the originals are 
both of the same dimensions, no mention being made of the greater size of the 
Marlborough specimen. This has been very misleading to the readers of that 
otherwise very accurate work. Mr. Wright may, however, be fairly excused, ag 
at the time his book was written, the bucket was in ruins, in a box of broken 
pottery at Stourhead. 
