330 Notes on the Church Plate of Wilts. 
pression and the $3 with a double circle in the centre. That of 
Orcheston St. Mary is a rather larger and more ornate vessel 8in. 
in diameter, with two sets of beaded mouldings on the rim, a double 
depression, the inner one sex-foil, and the Vernicle, or Head of the 
Saviour, engraved in the centre. This paten is parcel-gilt, and bears 
the date-letter either of 1506 or 1514. 
The remarkable covered cup now vsed as a chalice at Lacock 
measures 74in. in height, or, including the cover, 154in., and weighs 
290z. 8dwts. The ball on the cover, the base, the three bands of 
cresting, and the rim of the bowl are gilt. It bears no hall-marks, 
but was probably made in the latter half of the fifteenth century. 
In shape it resembles the beautiful Founders’ Cup at Christ’s 
College, Cambridge, though it is not so highly ornamented. It 
could hardly have been the “cuppe or challis” left for parish use 
by the Commissioners of 1558, as that is stated to have weighed 
20oz. only. Whether it was designed originally for Church use 
or not it is certainly one of the most notable pieces of the kind 
now remaining—for domestic plate of that date is even rarer than 
ecclesiastical—the necessities of the Civil War period and the changes 
of fashion having done their work even more thoroughly than the 
Commissioners of Edward VI. and the Injunctions of Elizabeth. 
Since the “Church Plate of Wilts” was published an Elizabethan 
chalice with paten cover has come to light at Stratton St. Margaret’s 
under somewhat singular circumstances. The plate in use there has 
been for many years of the poorest description—modern pewter— 
and the Vicar only heard lately, by accident, that there used to be 
a silver cup and cover, but that it was sold and the price it brought 
invested in the pewter chalice. On making further enquiries, how- 
ever, it turned out that a former Vicar had proposed, inasmuch as 
it had got thin and was much battered and damaged, and had 
already been mended more than once, to sell it for the very moderate 
sum of 7s. 6d. which had been offered for it. One of the church- 
wardens however said that, if it was all the same to the Vicar, he 
would prefer as a matter of sentiment that the cup out of which his 
parents and grand-parents had received the sacrament should not 
be sold. And as the matter was of such slight importance the Vicar 
