\ 



43 



|totc$ on jte=:|totman 5n%tmtb ^tone0 

 in Milts. 



By the Rev. E. H. Goddaed. 



|iHE study of the pre-Norman Christian art of England has 

 received a great impetus of late from the researches of 

 Canon G. F. Browne, F.S.A., and Mr. Romilly Allen, F.S.A. Scot. 

 — to the latter of whom we are indebted for the accompanying 

 valuable paper on the stones recently brought to light in Wiltshire. 



A few words by way of preface to this paper seem desirable. The 

 only examples of pre-Norman sculpture in Wilts hitherto noticed in 

 the Magazine are the two angels over the chancel arch of the Saxon 

 Church at Bradford-on-Avon, illustrated in vol. v., p. 248 ; the 

 panels of interlaced work and twining foliage on the piers of one 

 of the early arches in Britford Church, described and illustrated in 

 vol. xvii., p. 248 ; and the curious stone in Codford St. Peter Church, 

 described and illustrated by Dr. Baron in vol, xs., p. 138. 



Mr. Romilly Allen, in his very excellent little book, Tke Monu- 

 mental History of the Early British Church, published by the 

 S.P.C.K. in 1889, stated that, at the time he wrote, there were 

 about two hundred and thirty localities in England where stones 

 with Hiberno-Saxon decoration were known to exist, the number 

 of specimens being about four hundred. Of these very few indeed 

 are to be found in this part of England — the number of localities 

 noted by him being : in Dorsetshire and Berkshire (0), Hampshire (1), 

 Somerset (5), Devonshire (2), Gloucestershire (1), and Wilts (2). 



On the other hand, in those counties which in the ninth century 

 constituted the southern halves of Northumbria and Strathclyde and 

 the northern half of Mercia, they are far more numerous ; Yorkshire 

 heading the list with sixty-six localities, Cumberland (20), Durham 

 (19), Derbyshire (16), Northumberland (15), Northampton and 

 Lincolnshire each (11), Staffordshire (9), and Cheshire (8). 



