On Urns and Antiquities of the Cheviot Hills. 309 



been opened on the north side of the Chapel. This was owing 

 to the prejudice that existed in early times against being buried 

 behind the church. A number of graves have recently been 

 opened near the spot where the urn was found, but there were 

 no more vestiges of pre-occupation. There is evidence that the 

 ground on which Bolton Chapel stands had once been a sort of 

 oblong mound, and that the ground on the north and south 

 sides of the grave yard had been excavated, probably to heighten 

 the mound. It was probably the burial ground of the Hospital 

 or Lazar-house that occupied the lower ground immediately 

 behind the ridge which it terminates. The mortality must have 

 been great, augmented by that of the neighbouring village : for 

 to this day a grave dug on the south side of the Chapel shows 

 the ground to be a mass of bone-dust." 



Not to extend this article, I refrain from mentioning several 

 urns found near Bolton, of which I have obtained drawings and 

 descriptions, and for the same reason I omit another found near 

 Aberwick. I must ignore for the present the camp on the Lantern 

 Hill, and the various British settlements, camps, and slag-heaps 

 on the Titlington and Shawdon Hills, which still offer interesting 

 subjects for investigation. 



The Guards. 



My friend Mr Eobert Blair, F.S.A., the active co-Secretary of 

 the Newcastle Society of Antiquaries, has kindly sketched for me 

 a figure of the bottom of the bronze Patella, found during some 

 excavations in The Guards, which occupies the isolated area of 

 lower ground behind the boulder clay and gravel ridge on which 

 Bolton Chapel stands — see Fig. 28. This was exhibited in the 

 Museum of the Archaeological In- 

 stitute at their meeting held in 

 Edinburgh, July 1856, and in their 

 Catalogue, p. 61, is described as 

 "the bottom of a bronze skillet, 

 formed with concentric circles in 

 high relief. It was found in a large 

 camp called The Guards near the 

 river Aln, at Bolton, and was pre- 

 sented to the Antiquaries of New- 

 castle by Sir David Smith." The 

 place has a camp -like aspect, but 

 there are no remains to warrant its Fl 0- 2 ^ 



