THE HAMPSHIRE ANTIQUARY S> NATURALIST. 



129 



MR. BENNETT LANGTON. 



Will you allow me to inquire in your Notes and 

 Queries column, whether any one now living in 

 Southampton can give me the following information 

 regarding Mr. Bennett Langton, who died in St. 

 Michael's parish, and was buried in the chancel in 1801 . 



i. Was the house in which he died, in Anspach- 

 place, his own at the time, or was he on a visit to a 

 friend ; if so what friend ? 



2 Miss Hawkins, in her memoirs, mentions, as a 

 footnote, that a death-mask of Mr. Langton was made, 

 and was, when she wrote, in the possession of "a clergy- 

 man of Southampton," possibly the then Vicar of St. 

 Michael's. This must have have been seventy or more 

 years ago. Is anything known of this cast at present ? 



The Rev. Silvester Davies kindly referred me to 

 your journal. Perhaps I should state that I am 

 thoroughly familiar with Bennett Langton's ordinary 

 and accessible history, the cross-references in Bos- 

 well, &c., and these give no light on the above points. 



L. J. GURNEY. 

 39, Bedford-square, London, W.C. 



Information concerning Mr. Bennett Langton's con- 

 nection with Southampton has been asked for more 

 than once by contributors to this column, but there 

 seems to be little known of him locally, and but for 

 the memorial tablet on the east wall of St. Michael's 

 Church, and the casual reference in " Boswell," few 

 persons would know he ever resided in the town at 

 all. ED. N. & O. 



WEATHER REPORT FOR THE WEEK. 

 From the meteorological register made at the Ordnance 

 Survey Office, Southampton, under the direction of Col. Sir 

 Chas. Wilson, K.C.B., K.C.M.G., F.R.S., R.E. Lat. 50" 

 54 59" N. ; long. i 24' o" W. ; height above sea, 84 feet. 

 Observers Sergt. T. Chambers, R.E., and Mr. J. T. Cook. 



THE EXCAVATIONS AT SILCHESTER. A descriptive 

 account of the excavations undertaken by the Society 

 of Antiquaries, which appeared in the Reading 

 Mercury of August 30 last, has been reprinted as a 

 fcap. 8vo. pamphlet under the title of " The Remains 

 of the Ancient City of Silchester." 



THE HAMPSHIRE INDEPENDENT, November I, 1890. 



WOODEN WATER MAIN AT SOUTHAMPTON. 



" P." writes : " During the working of the channel 

 for the electric light in the soil below the Bargate, 

 Southampton, some lengths of the old tree-pipes that 

 conveyed water to the town hundreds of years ago 

 have been found. Mr. Jenkinson, the manager of the 

 works, showed them me a day or two ago. Perhaps 

 some one can give me the date, and to where they 

 went." 



These pipes are by no means so ancient as our 

 correspondent would believe. The agitation for an 

 improved supply of water to the town early in the 

 present century led to the construction, in 1804, of a 

 circular reservoir at the back of the Cowherds, on the 

 Common. From this reservoir, which was filled in 

 fourteen or fifteen years ag~>, there was laid a main of 

 elm timber pipes as far as Clayfield. Cast-iron pipes 

 were then laid as far as what was known at the time 

 as the Military Asylum, now the Ordnance Survey 

 Office ; and thence the main was continued in elm as 

 far as the Crown Hotel. The pipes were all laid on 

 the east side of the road, and their course through the 

 Bargate under the footway is clearly shown on the 

 Corporation maps of the period. A few years ago a 

 considerable section of the elm piping was taken up 

 near Moira-place. ED. N. & Q. 



*Black bulb in vacuo. 



3ELBORNE AND PRESTON CANDOVER. 



W. Cobbett in his " Rural Rides," p. 257, writes ef 

 Selborne, under date August 7, 1823 : 



The village of Selbourne is precisely what it is described 

 by Mr. White, a straggling, irregular street, bearing all 

 the marks of great antiquity, and showing from its lanes 

 and vicinage generally that it was once a very consider- 

 able place. I went to look at the spot where Mr. White 

 supposes the ancient convent formerly stood. It is very 

 beautiful. Nothing can surpass in beauty these dells and 

 hillocks and hangers, which last are so steep that it is 

 impossible to ascend them, except by means of a serpentine- 

 path. I found here deep, hollow ways, with beds and sides 

 of solid white stone ; but not quite so white and so solid, 1 

 think, as the stone which I found in the roads at Hankley. 

 The churchyard at Selbourne is most beautifully situated. 

 The land is good all about it. The trees are luxurious, and 

 prone to be lofty and large. I measured the yew tree in the 

 churchyard, and found the trunk to be, according to my 

 measurement, 23 feet 8 inches in circumfei ence. The trunk 

 is very short, as is generally the case with yew trees, but 

 the head spreads to a very great extent, and the whole 

 tree, though probably several centuries old, appears to be 

 in perfect health. 



