By the Rev. E. E. Goddard. 49 



the present state of our knowledge it is impossible to give exact 

 dates to pre-Norraan stones. Very few are, however, in my opinion, 

 earlier than A.D. 700, or later than A.D. 1000." 



Perhaps we should not be wrong in assigning most of the Wilts 

 specimens to the later half o£ this period, and those found at 

 Ramsbury especially to a date subsequent to A.D. 909, when that 

 place was made the see of the bishopric for the counties of Wilts 

 and Berks. 



Note. — As regards the illustrations, three of the Eamsbury photo-prints aro 

 from photographs most kindly given by Mr. H. Baber. The other six Eamsbury 

 photo-prints and the two from Colerne are from photographs taken specially for 

 the Magazine by Mr. B. W. Bradford. The Knook stone is from a tracing of 

 a rubbing kindly taken by the Rev. W. J. Swayne, Vicar of Heytesbury. The 

 diagrams of knots and the plates of the Bradford-on-Avon and Britford stoues and 

 one face of the Ramsbury cross base are from drawings and tracings of rubbings 

 by Mr. Romilly Allen. For the loan of the block of the Wantage stone the 

 Society is indebted to the kindness of the Publisher and Editor of the Antiquary, 

 in the January number of which it first appeared. 



The Ramsbury stones have been described and illustrated in a paper by M"r. 

 H. F. Stewart, in the Report of the Marlborough College Natural History 

 Society for 1891, p. 94, and also partially by Mr. E. Doran Webb, F.S.A., 

 in the Salisbury Field Club Transactions, vol. i., part ii., p. 90. 



[P.S. — Since the above has been in print I have had an oppor- 

 tunity of visiting Knook Church. I find that the stone with knot- 

 work ornament, of which a plate is given, is only old at one end for 

 about one-third (some 18in.) of its length, the remainder having 

 been copied from this to form an ornamental ledge above the altar. 



There are here also two very remarkable capitals now on either 

 side of the chancel arch, covered with shallow foliage decoration very 

 much resembling the early Byzantine work on the capitals of S. 

 Vitale, at Ravenna. It is hoped that these as well as the tympanum 

 of the door on the south side, sculptured with beasts with interlacing 

 tails in very low relief, may be illustrated in a future number of the 

 Magazine. 



Probably I ought also to have included in the Kst of sculptured 

 work in Wilts of pre-Norman date the rude carving on the capitals 

 of the tower arches of Netheravon — which I believe in the opinion 

 of Mr. Micklethwaite is rather Saxon than Norman. 



E. H. Goddard. May 10th, 1893.] 



VOL. XXVir. — NO. LXKIX. E 



