The Dinner. 197 



the whole of the very early churchwardens* accounts of Mere. It is 

 much to be hoped that some considerable portion of these accounts 

 may be printed by the Society at no distant date. Amongst other 

 interesting exhibits was a box of clippings from silver coins of 

 Elizabeth's reign, found in an old house near Frome, and certain 

 relics found quite recently with a skeleton at Southgrove Farm, 

 Collingbourne. These had been submitted to Mr. Read, of the 

 British Museum, who pronounced them to be of Roman or Romano- 

 British date. They consisted of the bone handle of a dagger or 

 knife, part of a pair of tweezers, and several ornamented pieces of 

 bone, together with iron objects, which Mr. Read thought might 

 have been portions of the eross-bow, of which the bone catch, or 

 trigger, was in fairly good preservation. There are two or three of 

 these cross-bow catches in the British Museum, but they are in- 

 teresting and not commonly fou-nd. This cross-bow was evidently 

 buried with its owner. 



At 5 o'clock the Rev. Sir James and Lady Philtpps received 

 the party at tea at the Vicarage, and afterwards conducted them 

 over the Parish Church, lately re-built on an enlarged scale by Sir 

 A. Blomfield, containing good new glass, and altogether forming a 

 fine modern Church — the one interesting example of old work being 

 a very small and plain eleventh century window in what was the 

 east wall of the Norman south transept. This was found built up 

 in the wall during the re-building, and has been carefully preserved. 

 The Chapel of St. Lawrence was also inspected, but contains 

 nothing of interest except its picturesque tower. 



The DINNER, at which fifty-one sat down, was held in the 

 Town Hall, at 7 o'clock. After the usual toasts, the Rev. Sir J. E. 

 Philipps proposed " Success to the Society," and Gen. Pitt- Rivers, 

 in replying, said that he thought the Society was doing really good 

 work and keeping up the interest in archaeological matters in the 

 county well. Of course the county was not a scientific division, 

 and perhaps the action of the Society last year when it united with 

 the Gloucestershire Society mio-ht point to the direction in which 

 local societies like our own might possibly develope in the future. 

 From many points of view a strong South-Western Society, formed 



