Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 3.djvu/82



four vessels, of which we present our readers with an engraving in the present number of our Journal, were found in the year 1838, at a very great depth in the ground, in making an excavation for a cellar near the extreme boundary of the walls of Trinity College, Oxford, formerly Durham Hall or College, adjoining to the premises of Balliol College, in- closed for the use of scholars about the year 1290, when there was a grant of the land for that purpose from the abbess of Godstow. There is therefore every reason to believe, from this and other circumstances, particularly from a coin being found in one of the larger vessels, that they were placed there deliberately about the time of the original foundation of the walls, according to the common custom still observed on the commencement of any great undertaking of this kind. Such at that time must