355 



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By J. E. Nightingale, F.S.A. 



T is not intended^ in the present paper, to give any general 

 or detailed account of Wiltshire Church plate, for that 

 would require a considerable amount of co-operation, but rather to 

 draw attention to the subject, and to suggest the necessity of pre- 

 serving what still remains of ancient Church plate in the county. 

 Perhaps the most effectual way of doing this is by preparing care- 

 fully-tabulated lists of the sacred vessels and whatever other plate 

 exists in each parish, together with such details of hall-marks, 

 dimensions, inscriptions, and references in parish books, &c, as can 

 be brought together. To make it permanent all modern plate 

 should be included. When this is done, and the particulars printed, 

 it will be found to be the best safeguard for their preservation. It 

 is also desirable to notice any old pieces not in actual use ; it fre- 

 quently happens that when new plate is presented, as it often is on 

 the restoration of a Church, the old pieces — -which may not be very 

 attractive — are put away, and, from changes of incumbency and 

 other causes, they eventually disappear, nobody knowing how. 



The most convenient machinery for accomplishing this is by 

 utilising the existing subdivision of the diocese into rural deaneries, 

 by which means a moderate and manageable number of parishes are 

 supervised by each rural dean. An excellent beginning was made 

 in 1880 by the Rev. C. R. Manning, Rural Dean of Redenhall, 

 Norfolk, the results of which were printed in the ninth vol. of the 

 Norfolk Archaeological Society. A still more important work has 

 lately been accomplished in the diocese of Carlisle ; a complete 

 volume has been published giving full details of all the existing 

 pieces, and also bringing to notice another specimen of a pre- 

 Reformation chalice, now in use at Old Hutton. 



There are good reasons for believing that the county of Wilts is 



