292 The Twenty-Ninth General Meeting. 



morning at Andover Junction Station, on the main line, at 8.15; 

 and went by rail to Basingstoke, which they reached at 9.10. Here 

 they found carriages awaiting them, and drove first to Sherborne 

 St. John, where they found enough of interest to detain them for a 

 considerable time, but when they reached the Vyne, where they 

 were most courteously received by the owner, C. W. Chute, Esq., 

 they were so charmed with the fine old house and its contents, which 

 were in turn carefully pointed out to them by Mr. Chute, as he 

 personally conducted them up-stairs and down, over the building, 

 that they could with difficulty tear themselves away from so fasci- 

 nating a spot : so that when (the President having expressed the 

 obligations of the Society to Mr. Chute) the carriages made the 

 best of their way to Silchester, the morning was already far ad- 

 vanced, before the walls of the old town were entered. Here 

 the party was received by Mr. J. Martineau, of Park Corner, 

 Heckfield, who had most kindly consented to conduct it over the 

 ruins, and very able and thoroughly acquainted with Silchester the 

 cicerone proved himself to be. The Rev. A. G. Joyce also, in the 

 most friendly manner, offered his services, and acted as guide to a 

 detachment of the excursionists. Much lamentation was generally 

 expressed at the sad state of neglect and the daily injury to the ruins, 

 which were permitted by the noble owner of this very interesting spot. 

 Mosaic pavement which had been carefully uncovered and protected, 

 now broken up, exposed to the atmosphere, and scattered over the 

 ground ; the foundation walls of buildings which had been traced and 

 unearthed, and the flues which heated them, now broken down, carried 

 away, or destroyed. Still, enough remains of these buildings and of 

 the massive walls, a mile in circuit, which surround the town, to make 

 Silchester one of the most interesting examples of Roman occupation 

 left in England ; and it was not till the archaeologists had thoroughly 

 satisfied their curiosity, by wandering over every part of it, that 

 they assembled for luncheon in a barn hard by, which the forethought 

 of the Commissariat Sub-Committee at Andover had secured for 

 them. So long a delay had taken place, first at the Vyne, and then 

 at Silchester, that again the return journey was somewhat hurried, 

 and the picturesque ruins of the old Chapel at Basingstoke could 



