Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 8.djvu/120



communicated a memoir entitled "Unpublished Notices relating to the Times of Edward I." It will be found in this volume, p. 45.

The gave a detailed account of an ancient mansion near Farnborough, in Kent, called Franks; and he submitted to the meeting numerous drawings, plans and elevations, illustrative of that interesting example of the domestic architecture of the sixteenth century.

brought before the society a remarkable object of bronze, (see woodcut,) of a type hitherto known only by one other example; and which, as far as can be ascertained, does not occur in any continental collection. He gave the following particulars relative to its discovery:—

"The bronze object now exhibited was obtained from a labourer in Farndale, Yorkshire, N.R., by whom it had been found in the year 1849, whilst engaged in removing the stones from a cairn on the high moorland to the west of that dale. He stated that it was found near the bottom of the cairn, concealed in the cavity of a hollowed stone, which again was covered by a flat stone. Whether these stones and the object which they concealed had been placed near the centre or the exterior of the cairn did not appear. When found, it was stated to have contained 'nothing but a sort of ashes like decayed paper.' No other object, it was stated, has yet been found in this cairn; which, however, has probably been only in part removed. Like an adjacent remarkable cairn, known by the name of 'Hobthrush, or Hobtrush Rook,' which was examined several years since by some members of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society, it had probably been erected over a stone cist, which may, as in that instance, have been surrounded by two concentric circles of stones. Rook, in the local dialect, signifies a heap of any kind.

"The probable conclusion is, that this curious object had been deposited in the place where it was found merely for the purpose of concealment, and that the cairn is of an earlier date.

"In the year 1837, in an ancient stone-quarry at Thorngrafton, near Hexham, in Northumberland, an object of the same kind was discovered. This has been figured by Mr. Akerman. in his 'Roman Coins relating to Britain,' and again by Mr. Bruce in his recent work on 'The Roman Wall.' Mr. Bruce describes it as a skiff-shaped vessel, or receptacle, about six inches long, with a circular handle. Like that from Farndale, it has a lid with a hinge at one end, and fastens with a spring at the other. In the Farndale example the spring or bolt has been lost, but the adjustment connected with it. and the hole into which the fastenings may have closed, are to be seen.

"In that from Thorngrafton were sixty-five Roman gold and silver coins, chiefly of the emperors, from Claudius to Hadrian. There can, I conceive, be little doubt that we here have examples of a species of Roman purse,—