The loss which the Society has suffered by the death of Sir George Hill has been referred to at length, and in very appropriate terms, by the Secretary: but I wish at the outset of this address to pay a personal tribute to his memory, as one who has received many kindnesses from him, and benefited from the wealth and extent of specialized knowledge he was so generous in imparting. Sir George represented the finest flower of that exact scholarship in which the Victorian Age excelled: now, full of years and honours, he has passed on.

The excavations described in this report were aimed at establishing more about the character of the Cambridgeshire Car Dyke and at defining the period during which it was in active use. The dyke, which traverses with several changes of direction the low gravel and loam promontory between the fork of the Cam or Granta immediately south of Waterbeach and the alluvium of the Old West River (and present Ouse) north-north-east of Cottenham (fig. 1), varies in character considerably in its five-mile course. Most of it has been degraded to a field ditch, and over some stretches cultivation has overrun the banks on either side and encroached upon the bed, but the dyke survives reasonably intact at Waterbeach and on the site of the present excavations at Bullock's Haste and Setchel Fen.

In September 1943, in the course of repair work made necessary by the air raid of May 1942, certain fragments of wax images were found by one of the cathedral masons on the top of the stone screen which surrounds the quire. They were hidden behind the cresting in a wide open joint of the masonry, loosely packed with broken pieces of glass, slaked lime, oyster-shells, and splinters of stone, and over the tomb of Bishop Edmund Lacey (1420–55) (pl. XIX, a). All the fragments of wax are unpainted and all have been cast in a mould; they vary in colour from a dirty pale yellow to a deep terra-cotta; they are very brittle and dry to the touch, without the soft, silky feel of a wax doll.

The following notes relate to one of a number of ancient occupation and other sites examined by the writers between 1925 and 1939, in the district between St. Keverne and Coverack in the Lizard peninsula, and of which a record will appear in due course in the Journal of the Royal Institute of Cornwall. Meanwhile as the pottery found on the site in question may be of importance in helping to date Dark Ages ceramics discovered elsewhere, it has been thought advisable to publish the present account in the Antiquaries Journal.

The importance of wills as a means of identifying unknown or lost brasses has long been recognized. Even for a brass of unquestioned identity, the study of the will often serves to elucidate heraldry, identify children, or, at its lowest, as a bonne bouche for the curious. One will, at least, is printed by Cotman, the first man to devote a book entirely to brasses; others are used by Waller; Haines endeavoured to collect from them indications of the costs of brasses; and later brass manuals have followed suit. The growth of record societies, however, and the consequent printing of wills, wholly or in part, has increased so greatly the information available, that it would seem the subject can endure the attentions of yet another antiquary.