Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 11.djvu/163

. XI. FEB. 21, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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on a label over it. One or two other houses still contain "dummy" windows paintec upon them. This was done to avoid the tax in cases where a window was only necessary to maintain a uniformity in the architectura' outline. JOHN T. PAGE.

West Haddon, Northamptonshire.

The square in which I reside contains some seventy houses, and the word " Dairy,' in very old lettering, in some instances almosi indecipherable, occurs above the pantry win dow in four of them. The square was built between sixty and seventy years ago.

CHAS. F. FORSHAW, LL.D.

48, Hanover Square, Bradford.

In reply to C. F. Y. I clearly remember seeing " A Dairy " painted in black and white over a window of Portobello Farm, Pulloxhill Bedfordshire. I frequently saw it while I was vicar of Harlington, an adjoining parish, from 1879 to 1894. W. H. DAUBNEY.

St. Margaret's Gate, Bury St. Edmunds.

The word " Dairy " was to be seen inscribed over a window in farmhouses, and places of greater pretension where cows were kept, until the abolition of the window duty. I have been familiar with many of these in- scriptions in various parts of the country, but fear that they have now nearly all of them perished from natural decay and want of paint. This is a misfortune, as they formed useful memorials of one of the worst taxes with which we were ever afflicted. There was one of these dairy-boards over a window in the Old Hall at Northorpe, near this town, in the year 1865 ; and I remember a Glouces- tershire friend, about eighteen years ago, directing my attention to a similar board on a farmhouse near Berkeley Castle.

EDWARD PEACOCK. Kirton-in-Lindsey.

When I was a lad nearly all the older farm- houses in South Notts and Leicestershire, where Stilton cheese is very largely made, had the word " Cheese-room " painted above the window of the room in which the cheese was stored. The reason was that given by your correspondent, but I was not aware that dairy windows were exempt from taxation, nor have I seen them so distinguished.

C. C. B.

PLOTTING PARLOUR (9 th S. xi. 48). I believe that there is a portrait of Lord Delamer in the possession of Mr. N. Story Maskelyne, Basset Down, Swindon. He has, 1 know, several portraits of the Booth family.

M. T. ATKINSON.

MORDAUNT COLLEGE (9 th S. x. 509 ; xi. 55). Morden College has never been called " Mor daunt." The place has been always known as " Morden College," founded by Sir John Morden, a copy of whose will, dated 15 October, 1702, is now before me, so spelt. On 22 De- cember last I sent you some information about pedigrees of the Morden family, which has not been referred to in any way.

There is at Morden College a regularly consecrated chapel (or church), of which the well-known author the Rev. Henry Lansdell, D.D., has been resident chaplain for some years, and there are some curious registers under his charge, but principally of marriages during the eighteenth century, when partly, tradition says, owing to footpads and high- waymen there was no nearer place for mar- riages than Greenwich or Ola Charlton so many were celebrated at Morden Chapel. I do not think the vicar of Kidbrooke, a newly built church here, could give J. M. T. much information, but possibly I might get some for him. G. C. W.

"MUSKEG BERRY" (9 th S. x. 509). The ' Cen- tury Dictionary ' defines muskeg as a bog, a soft mossy or peaty spot. Muskeg berry is not mentioned, but it is evidently a berry that grows in swampy ground, perhaps a cranberry or a variety of huckleberry. See these names, also bilberry, blueberry, and swamp-blackberry, in 'Century Dictionary.' I asked a Canadian who knew the flora of his neighbourhood, but the name was not familiar to him. JOHN E. NORCROSS.

Brooklyn, U.S.

RETARDED GERMINATION OF SEEDS (9 th S. x. 287, 358 ; xi. 53). The statement (quoted at the last reference) that a certain species of poppy has reappeared after being presumably extinct for 2,000 years is remarkable from several points of view. It implies (1) that the poppy was no mere local variety ; (2) that the fortuitous introduction of seed to the cleared space was absolutely impossible ; (3) that the non-existence of this species else- where throughout the centuries was con- tinuously and exhaustively verified ; and (4)
 * hat a comprehensive botanical description

of the world's flora exists written at least

000 years ago, whereby the identity of this resurgent species is indubitably establishable. After granting these premises it is easy to endow the buried seed with the power of resisting disintegrating agencies such as per- solating moisture, &c., for the requisite period. 5Tet in the case of mummy seeds preserved under almost ideal conditions, so high an authority as De Candolle definitely pro-