2 
JOHN BROWNE. 
St. Margaret’s ; these and a similar one at Riccall he sketched 
and studied. It is a century since Browne made a drawing of 
St. Margaret’s Porch ; in 1819 he published by subscription an 
etching of ic. In 1822, ninety-five copies of the etching had been 
purchased. In April, a member of the Union Lodge of York 
Freemasons proposed that a cast taken of the Arch of Riccall 
Doorway by John Browne, artist, be accepted and placed in the 
Lodge as a memorial of Brother the Rev. F. Kendall’s zeal for 
Masonry. It was claimed that the antiquity of the Order of 
Freemasons was uncontrovertibly shown in the arch sculptures. 
In September 1823, Browne began the publication of “Reliquiae 
Antiquae,” or a series of etchings representing remains of ancient 
architecture and sculpture in the County of York. The work 
was dedicated to the Earl of Carlisle. No. i was devoted to St. 
Lawrence’s Doorway and Font, with details of* the sculpture. 
The accumulated coats of whitewash which the font had received 
had obliterated the carvings, and a considerable time was spent in 
picking off the whitewash and washing the font before it could be 
sketched. x\lthough there were fifty-six subscribers the continua¬ 
tion of the project was abandoned. 
Browne’s interest in St. Margaret’s Porch was renewed by 
reading “An inquiry into the age of the Porch of St. Margaret’s 
Church, York,” by John Macgregor, which had been com¬ 
municated to the Antiquarian Society of Newcastle. Macgregor 
concluded that St. Margaret’s Porch was erected by the Romans 
/ 
during the reign of Severus, and that in the carvings there was a 
representation of that Emperor, and that the worship of the Sun 
was indicated by the twelve signs of the Zodiac, and therefore the 
Porch had been originally attached to a Mithriatic Temple. 
In 1825, a paper “On the probable antiquity of the Porch of St. 
Margaret’s,” by John Browne, was addressed to Richard Drake, 
curator of the Museum Antiquities. At the Council Meeting of 
the Yorkshire Philosophical Societ}^ held on January loth, 1826, 
it was resolved “that Mr. Browne’s memoir be read at* to-day’s 
General Meeting, and that he be subsequently at liberty to publish 
it.” It was the first paper read at an afternoon meeting of the 
Society, and took place 91 years ago. The following year the 
paper was published in a quarto pamphlet with a plate illustrating 
details of the carving. He showed that the thirteen lunar months 
of the Anglo-Saxon year were represented with their chief occupa¬ 
tions. ffhe sculptures were not in their proper order ; the Porch 
