49 
rowel. At a later period they became very rich in their orna¬ 
mentation. The cavaliers in the seventeenth century wore very 
costly spurs attached to their jack-boots. 
I to 68. A series of spurs and rowels, of various periods, from the 
fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries. 
17. An ornamental spur, probably of the seventeenth century, pre¬ 
sented by the Town Council of Salisbury. A somewhat 
similar but modern spur is in Mr. E. T. Stevens’s Case L L, 
No. 159. This specimen was brought from Mexico, and is 
probably a traditional form of Spanish spur. 
26. A curiously ornamented spur, deposited by Mrs. Good. 
33 to 44. A series of rowels of various forms and periods. 
46. An example with rowel of four points. 
64. Rowelled spurs, found at Old Sarum, and presented by Mr. 
Marsh, of Stratford. 
Other good examples are found in Mr. E. T. Stevens’s Case A A, 
such as— 
261 to 264, with very long shanks. 
265. Bronze rowel. 
267 and 268. Rowels of unusual length. 
* 69 to 73. Stirrups. 
An early form of stirrup is No. 2, Case L L of Mr. E. T. 
Stevens’s collection. 
74. Metal object of unknown use. 
Old English Arrow-heads. 
These form, perhaps, the most valuable portion of the numerous 
objects collected during the drainage excavations, especially to 
those who have given their attention to military antiquities. From 
their general use we might well have expected to find upon the 
old battle fields countless arrows that have darkened heaven in 
their flight: but the iron piles, in common with the wooden shafts, 
seem all to have well-nigh perished, so that an Old English arrow¬ 
head is now amongst the rarest items of English war-craft that 
can be produced. 
It is well known that the practice of archery is of remote anti¬ 
quity in Britain, a fact evident from the abundance of flint arrow- 
blades exhumed with undoubted remains of the “ stone period.” 
During the middle ages, before the use of gunpowder, their use 
was so general that Sir John Fortescue declared, that “ the might 
of this realme of Englande standyth ypon her archers.” This was 
t no idle boast, for history records how the trusty bows of English 
yew, bent by the stalwart arms of England’s yeomen, triumphed 
over the vaunted chivalry of France upon the fields of Crecy, 
Poitiers, and Agincourt. It is, perhaps, more difficult to deter¬ 
mine the date of arrow-blades than anything else in the whole 
H 
