Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/469

 ii s. iv. DEC. 9, i9ii.j NOTES AND QUERIES.

463

same year. The writer, Thomas Chrichlow or Win. Gorten (for there is nothing to show which wrote the account), seems to have been either a builder or architect, as a great many of the remarks have reference to the character of the buildings in the various places they visited.

I ought to add that the list is made out in a rather confusing way, which makes it difficult in a few instances to be sure which inn belonged to the particular town.

Chester. Coach and Horses. Very obliging and moderate.

Wrexham. Red^ Lyon. Very obliging and moderate.

Bllesmere. Oak. Very obliging and moderate.

Shrewsbury. Red Lyon. Very obliging and moderate.

Ludlow. Crown. Very obliging and moderate.

Worcester. Crown. Very obliging and mode- rate.

Upton. White Lyon.

Tewkesbury. Hart. Very obliging and mode- rate.

Gloucester. King's Head (New Inn). Dirty, but reasonable.

Malvern. Ship. Moderate.

Lidney. Feathers. Civil and moderate.

Bristol. White Hart. Very obliging and moderate.

Chepstow. Three Cranes. Very obliging and very moderate.

Bath. Three Tuns and White Lyon. Neat, but very dear.

Devizes. Bear, Warminster. Moderate.

Salisbury. Three Lyons, Lyon, and Cross Keys. Obliging, but dear.

Romsey. Bell.

Stockbridge. King's Head. Extravagantly dear.

Deptford. Chequers (?) Dirty and extra- vagant.

Winchester. George. Civil and moderate.

Alresford. Swan. Moderate.

Wickham. King's Head. Moderate.

Portsmouth. George. Obliging, but dear.

Guildford. White Hart. Moderate and decent.

Cobham. Red Lyon. Careless, but mode- rate.

London. Ax Inn, Aldermanbury. Obliging and moderate.

Windsor. Mermaid. Civil, but d d dear.

Oxford. Angel. Moderate.

Woodstock. Bear. Genteel and moderate.

Stowe, Bucks. Hart. Very obliging and very moderate.

Warwick. Swan. Obliging to an extreme.

Birmingham. White Hart. Obliging and moderate.

Wolverhampton. Swan (?), but mode- rate.

Stafford. Swan. Obliging and moderate.

Newcastle. New Roebuck. Obliging and moderate.

Holm Chapel. Red Lyon and Postboy.

Northwich. Crosskeys (?).

Warrington. White Bull (?).

A. H. ABKLE.

Birkenhead.

HOLED STONES : TOLMENS.

(See ante, p. 227.)

THE holed stone is a peculiar kind of pre- historic stone monument, presumably sepulchral, occurring in Devonshire and Cornwall, in Ireland, Wales, Scotland,. France, Cyprus, and India. The size of the hole varies considerably some being no- larger than a half-crown, others affording a passage for the human body. Their pur- pose is unknown. Fergusson ( ' Rude Stone Monuments,' p. 255) speaks of the peculiarly binding nature of an oath sworn by persons joining hands through a holed stone at Stenness. There was the stone of Odin,, the great monolith, pierced by a hole at a- height of 5 ft. from the ground, which figures so prominently in Scott's ' Pirate.' It stood 150 yards to the north of the- Ring of Stenness. In Scotland libations are- poured through holed stones in honour of Browny, the ~ supposed guardian of bees. Miss A. W. Buckland suggests that the Men-an-Tol, near Penzance, may have been*, connected with sun-worship, and in the Journal Anthrop. Inst., ix. 153, remarks : " I never heard of libations being poured through Cornish holed stones."

Tolmens, or perforated stones for drawing children through, and adults also,, in order to cure diseases, occur in the East Indies. Two brass pins were carefully laid across each other on the top edge of such a stone for oracular purposes (' Popular Antiquities,' ii. 523). Creeping under Tol- mens for the cure of diseases is still practised in Ireland (Higgins's 'Druids,' lix.). Mrs.. Ellwood ('Journey to the East/ ii. 90) informs us that near a fine tank on Malabar Point is a famous hole through which penitents squeezed themselves in order to attain the remission of their sins. The pirate Angria actually landed one night, and came on shore, secretly to perform this, superstitious ceremony. Sir Arthur Brooke (' Sketches,' ii. 38) found them in Morocco. Gwilt, in the ' Encyclopaedia of Architecture,' describes the Tolmen, or hole of stone, as a stone of considerable magnitude, so disposed upon rocks as to leave an opening between them, through which an object could be passed. It is the opinion in Cornwall that invalids were cured of their diseases by being passed through the opening above men- tioned.

TOM JONES.