ANCIENT MEMORIAL BRASSES OF DORSET. 127 



show the usual family grouping ; the father in armour, with 

 nine sons kneeling on one side of the table, the mother with 

 eight daughters on the opposite side, and having their armorial 

 bearings above. 



These late brasses may in this county be compared with 

 Nicholas Martin and his wife of a decade earlier at Piddleton, 

 and Mistress Clavell and her children, the first wife of John 

 Clavell, at Church Knowle, having their effigies partly cut 

 around ; but they are otherwise very similar. 



Arising from this description, I wish to draw your attention 

 to the peculiarities brought to my notice while visiting Fleet 

 last year with our member Mr. J. G. W. Clift, who would 

 have been present to speak himself Mere it not that sterner 

 duties call, his address now being R.E. Mess, Brompton 

 Barracks, Chatham. Mr. Clift, as you may be aware, is 

 a member of the Royal Commission for the Preservation ot 

 Historical Monuments, and rightly considers he is translating 

 theory into practice by offering his services to his country. 



To illustrate the peculiarities, I have taken impressions 

 both in wax and foil ; I find the latter particularly useful. 

 Mr. Clift drew my attention to the fact that these brasses 

 appeared to have been executed in rather a different fashion 

 to that usually adopted. He says in a letter of last week : 



"The most common form of work was undoubtedly executed 

 with graving tools, and in the hands of a skilful man no finer 

 method could have been employed for the production of clean 

 good work and line. Somewhere about the early part of 

 the 16th century, however, the style of brass changes some- 

 what, and shadows are worked with cross-hatching in a very 

 straggling fashion ; and if I am correct, a new method of 

 producing the incised lines was introduced, namely, acid 

 biting. I have from time to time noticed brasses of this 

 period in which the lines show the characteristic ragged edge 

 of the bitten line." 



From my experience of Dorset brasses, these examples do 

 appear to differ from others in the county, and since Mr. Clift 

 pointed out this difference, I have examined man}' and 



