With regard to the sepulchral monuments, I cannot do better than to quote Dr. Cox: "No county can compare with Derbyshire in the abundance of early incised slabs, from the tenth century downwards. They are found built into the walls of many of the churches, especially in North and East Derbyshire. The best collections are at Bakewell, Darley, and Chelmorton. Effigies incised on slabs of the local alabaster found at Chellaston are common in South Derbyshire churches, for the most part of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. There are remarkable semi-effigial monuments at Brampton, Kedleston, Hartington and Mackworth. Early stone effigies are found at Darley, Eggington, Ilkeston, Melbourn, Norbury, Newton-Solney, Sawley, Sudbury, Wingerworth, North Wingfield, Youlgreave, etc. There are some fine alabaster effigies effigies at Ashbourne, Aston-on-Trent, Cubley, Duffield, Kedleston, Longford, Newton-Solney, Norbury and Radbourne. Owing to the prevalence of stone, brasses are not common; but there is an excellent series at Morley, and some good ones at Ashover, Dronfield, Etwall, Hathersage, Mugginton, Norbury, Sawley, Staveley, Tideswell, Walton-on-Trent and Wilne."

The county does not contain a perfect medieval churchyard cross. Except for a thirteenth-century shaft at Dovebridge, the remaining fragments are of uncertain age, and rarely consist of more than the steps and the socketstone. At Wheston-in-the-Peak is an exquisite fourteenth-century wayside cross, almost perfect; and the head of the King's Newton cross of the same period is preserved in a garden at that place.

The monastic remains of Derbyshire are not extensive. A few windows incorporated into some cottages mark the site of the largest religious house in the county, the Augustinian abbey of Darley, near Derby. The remains of Repton Priory, a house of the same order, are considerable. Most of the site of the church was excavated in 1883-4. The western range of its claustral buildings is now used as the school-house, and the gateway of the precints is still standing. The present church of Gresley is a portion of the small Augustinian priory there. The Premonstratensians had two houses in the county, one at

Beauchief in the north, and the other at Dale near Derby. The nave and fourteenth-century tower of the former is now the parish church. Dale Abbey is richer in picturesque traditions than in visible remains. The lower courses of most of the church were laid bare by the Derbyshire Archæological and Natural History Society in 1878, and still remain open to inspection. The little building now used as the parish church exhibits Norman, Early-English, and Perpendicular work, and probably was part of the monastic infirmary. One side of the cloister, with its Perpendicular windows and coeval stained glass, now forms the north side of the north aisle at Morley, and some of the Abbey stalls are at Radbourne. Some Early-English windows remain of the Preceptory of Yeaveley, and extensive mounds and foundations mark the site of that of Arleston near. At Dale there is a rock-hermitage that dates from the twelfth century; at Cratcliffe, near Youlgreave, is another which has a wellpreserved crucifix carved in high relief on its rocky side. Anchor Church, a curious excavation in the rock near Ingleby, has probably the same origin, but it has been greatly altered in modern times.

Mediaval Strongholds.-Derbyshire is not conspicuous for its medieval castles. Peak Castle, Castleton, is a characteristic Norman stronghold, on a small scale. The shell of the keep (27 ft. by 29ft.) is tolerably perfect, and retains much of its ashlar facing. The curtain wall is apparently of earlier construction, and exhibits the only herring-bone masonry in the county. The site of Duffield Castle, a De Ferrers stronghold, was excavated under the auspices of the Derbyshire Archæological and Natural History Society in 1886, when the lower courses of one of the largest Norman keeps in the kingdom (93 ft. by 95 ft.), with walls ranging from 14 ft. to 20 ft. in thickness, was laid bare. Bolsover Castle is partly in ruins. The oldest portion of the existing buildings was erected at the commencement of the seventeenth century upon the foundations of the Norman keep erected by the Peverels. Much of the site of the royal castle of Horsley, near Derby, was quarried away in the last century. The existing remains seem to relate to a multangular keep of

the fourteenth century. Gresley Castle is now a mere mound; Melbourne, scanty foundations and a wall. The existing remains of Codnor Castle show that it was of considerable extent, partaking, however, more of the character of a fortified mansion than a feudal fortress; its oldest work belongs to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. A few earthworks mark the site of the Saxon castle of Bakewell, while that of Derby is but a memory.

Since this paper was read, the generalisations on pages 7 and 8, anent what may be tentatively regarded as the Derbyshire type of chambered tumulus, have received considerable confirmation and amplification. Last August Mr. Salt, of Buxton, and myself, investigated the Five Wells barrow. This mound originally contained in its central region two megalithic chambers, each entered by its own gallery from opposite sides. One of these chambers is almost perfect, except that it lacks a roof. It is wedge-shaped in plan, with sides leaning inwards, not through pressure of the materials of the mound, but as part of the original design. Some of its floor-paving remained, and the galleries also were rudely paved or pitched. The wall-like podium was found to be intact to the height of about 2 ft. 6 ins., where excavated. It was not a separable retaining-wall, but was part and parcel of the general structure of the mound, which consisted of quarried thinly-bedded limestones, laid in courses. This podium was not (as has been observed in some parts of the country) curved inwards to the actual entrances of the galleries, nor was it drawn over them so as to mask them. Apparently, in the perfect condition, they were simple square openings in the face of the podium, and flush with it. The chambers had been completely rifled, but we found in the corner of one a flint knife wrought by exquisite surface-flaking, exactly corresponding in workmanship with the leaf-shaped arrowheads found in Derbyshire chambers.

Subsequently, Mr. Salt continued the exploration with a remarkable result. In clearing the podium in another place, he discovered a contracted human skeleton in a small rude cist, erected against the face of the podium; and with it was associated a slightlytrimmed flint flake. It is obvious that this interment was of subsequent date to the construction of the barrow; and as it exactly agrees with the large class of contracted interments described on pages 8 to 11, which with universal consent are regarded as pre-Roman, it affords a decisive proof of the high antiquity of the Derbyshire chambered tumuli, in spite of the attempts of the author of Rude Stone Monuments to give them a comparatively recent date.

J. W.

ON THE DISCOVERIES AT THE TOWER OF LONDON IN THE SPRING OF 1899.

BY C. H. COMPTON, ESQ., V.-P.

(Read November 1st, 1899.)

N the month of June last, shortly after the close of our Session 1898-1899, the public press called attention to discoveries made at the Tower of London, in the course of excavations which were then being made on the ground adjoining the south-west side of the White Tower, preparatory to the erection, by the War Office, of a guard-room and other buildings for the convenience of the troops quartered in the Tower.

The articles discovered consisted of a quantity (about 200) of stone, iron, and lead shot embedded in masonry, with portions of oyster-shells adhering. The majority of the stone balls were of Kentish rag stones, the largest being 7 ins. in diameter; a block of Roman masonry, a Roman pot, damaged in the course of its exhumation, four lengths of the flue of a hypocaust with paving tiles adhering, which became detached on removal; an old bottle of wine, half full of a light-coloured liquor, supposed to be Canary or sack; a portion of an earthenware bottle with Bellarmine head, tobacco-pipes, daggers, etc.

There was also brought to light an underground stonevaulted passage, leading from the White Tower to the Moat, of Norman transitional twelfth-century work; and at the south-west angle of the White Tower an oubliette was discovered, also a well of Norman construction, with water in it to the depth of 30 ft. The contractor of the works was proceeding to fill in this well, but on the representations of H.M. Board of Works, it is to be bricked

over, with a manhole, to enable investigations to be made. on application.

These discoveries are specially interesting in a twofold point of view. So much of them as are connected with the recognized periods of the existence of our old fortress. will afford materials for enquiry and research within ascertained limits; whilst those which point to an earlier epoch will form additional proofs of a more remote antiquity: which was once the dream, but of late has become a settled conviction, that there was a fortress on this site during the Roman occupation of Britain.

A portion of the site of these excavations is the foundation of the Cold Harbour Tower, which formerly stood at the south-west corner of the White Tower, and formed the entrance to an enclosure containing the domestic apartments of the Palace, which occupied the entire south-east angle of the inner ward. At the southeast corner of the White Tower stood the Wardrobe Tower.2

3

In the twenty-third year of the reign of King Henry VIII (A.D. 1532) a survey was made of the Tower of London, in order to a general repair of its different buildings, in which the item relating to the Cold Harbour Tower is as follows:

"The tower called Colde-Harber-The same tower the most part of it to be taken down and to be gazettyde tabled ventyde lowped copyde and crestyd wh cane stone and the vics of the same mendyd as also rough cast with lyme."

4

"The wall from the tower and lodgyng of the King's re'co'ds upon the right hand going up to the hyll adioynyng vnto Colde Harbour gt in lengthe cxxx of foote the same wall to be ventyd lowped copyd and crestyd with cane stone and also rough cast with lyme."

Both the Cold Harbour Tower and the Wardrobe Tower are shown in a survey and plan made in 1597 by W. Haiward and J. Gascoigne, which is now at the

1 Bailey's Hist. of the Tower.

2 The Cold Harbour Tower is sometimes referred to as the Cold Harbour Gate; and in the Harleian MS. No. 1326 there is a description "The Nun's Bower-the Prisons over the Cole harbour Gate." 3 This survey is fully set out in Bailey's Hist. of the Tower, p. 1; App., p. viii, vol. I. 4 I.e., the Wakefield Tower, since demolished.