CHARTER, ST. LAWRENCE DE PONTEBOY. 31 



between Bodmin and Liskeard has given the name of " Douhlehois " 

 to the Eailway Station at that place. My Cornish friends in 

 those parts feel no difficulty about this designation ; and though 

 I cannot undertake to say whether they will now see a bridge of 

 wood, I think that if, on their next visit to Cornwall, my Cambro- 

 British friends would bend their steps to the pretty bridge and 

 beautiful woods of Dunmear and Pencarrow, they will at least 

 thank me for having suggested so pleasant a stroll on a summer's 



^^^""^g- EDWARD SMIRKE. 



By the courtesy of the Cambrian Archseological Association 

 we are enabled to place before our readers a representation of the 

 seal of the dissolved Hospital of St. Laurence de Ponteboy, first 

 published in their Journal in 1863."' The existence of the matrix 

 appears to have been forgotten until the meeting of that Society 

 in Cornwall in 1862; during a visit to Bodmin on that occasion 

 the seal was shown in the Guildhall. Professor Babington, in his 

 memoir before cited, observes that it is well deserving of a place 

 in some permanent museum, and such suitable depository might, 

 as we believe, be found either at Truro or Penzance. He remarks 

 that the seal is apparently the most ancient proof of the existence 

 of the Hospital that is extant ; the entries in the bishops' registers 

 at Exeter, previously mentioned, had escaped his notice whilst 

 compiling his interesting memoir. The matrix, as he supposes, 

 was probably made in the fifteenth century, and even perhaps not 

 long before the year 1500. We entirely agi-ee in the contusion 

 expressed by our friend that the seal at the first aspect seems 

 much older than that period ; and, whilst admitting the possibility 

 that its somewhat unartistic design may have been due, in some 

 degree, to its having been executed by some provincial workman 

 in a remote district,t the fashion of the lettering, with certain other 



* ArcJiceologia Cambrensis, vol. ix., third series, p. 177. 



f As further examples of old seals, unskilfully reproduced in a more 

 modern matrix, the reader may be referred to the jDresent seals of Helston 

 and St. Ives, and the lost seal of the Deanery of St. Burian, in Cornwall; ■ 

 Wells, in Somerset; Bideford (bridge trustees), in Devon; Vv^'okingham, in 

 Berks; &c., &c. The very grotesque seal of West Looe, called in more 

 formal documents Porthpigham, or Portbigham {C'ornub. "Lesser port"), in 

 Cornwall, is also clearly of this character, and affords a like instance of a varia- 

 tion in the spelling of the name, which is therein spelt " Portuan," — E. S. 



d2 



