Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 5.djvu/51

Rh the use for which they were intended: the groove might suggest that they were calculated to receive the window glazing, and the possibility of their having served this purpose is, at first sight, in some degree strengthened by the fact that the edge which is bevelled is coated with a fine glaze, as if intended for a protection against the weather; but the shape of the groove, and its situation, so close to one edge of the brick, together with the roughness of the whole surface, except the small portion which is glazed, seem entirely to negative the conjecture of their having been employed in such a manner, and to lead to the supposition that they were designed for some purpose which would have left no more than the glazed edge exposed to sight. The groove in these bricks has been formed with an instrument drawn along the surface of the unburnt clay; the bevelled edges of these, and of the bricks fig. 5, have been cut to their present form with a sharp tool: the bricks fig. 4 have also been reduced to their peculiar shape with a cutting tool, and not by impression in a mold.

The whole of these specimens were of compact substance, and very well burnt, and in their general appearance, when viewed edgeways, so closely resembling Roman bricks that they might easily have been mistaken for such if seen built into a wall, (as other fragments of brick of similar kind in the walls of the north aisle of the same church have been ) but