This paper is written in the hope that it may assist in getting more uniformity in the description of beads. At the present time there is no general agreement between different archaeologists as to how a bead should be described. For my own work I have found it essential to have some classification and nomenclature, and I have endeavoured in this paper to work out a system applicable to the beads of all countries. I will give two instances showing the necessity for some definitions. The first is that I consulted two well-known archaeologists, working on the beads of different countries, as to what they considered a disc bead. They did not agree, in fact the only point on which they did agree was that no bead called a disc bead by the other should be called a disc bead. The second instance is taken from the Antiquaries Journal for July 1925, where it is stated that a coloured Anglo-Saxon bead of the usual type was found.

The very interesting chessmen illustrated on pls. v and vi were found during excavations carried out by Mrs. McGeagh at Witchampton Manor about five miles NNW of Wimborne. The work revealed the foundations of buildings regarded as mainly of medieval origin, though a British fibula and a quantity of Roman pottery, chiefly in fragments, have also come to light.

In this communication, which is submitted in response to the invitation sent by your President to the Council of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland asking them to nominate one of their Fellows to report on recent archaeological research in Scotland, I propose briefly to review the recent discoveries and developments that have taken place in our endeavours to unravel the story of prehistoric and later man in Scotland. I shall begin at the earlier periods, and, working forward, indicate the progress we have made, the problems we see before us, and the manner in which we have dealt with the various questions as they arose.

It may appear strange to many that a sister of Edward III should be practically unknown, not only to historians and students of the present time, but also to most of the chroniclers of her own period. The children of Edward II were but four in number, of whom one, John of Eltham, died in his youth. Of the remaining three, Eleanor alone has missed that close attention which her birth and position would seem to warrant. Yet the fact remains that although Mrs. M. A. E. Green in her Lives of the Princesses of England devotes a chapter to Eleanor, her list of authorities is a comparatively short one; and the Historia Gelriae of Pontanus seems to be the only work which contains sufficient material for compiling a coherent story of Eleanor's life.

The priory church of Deerhurst is situated on the northern boundary of Gloucestershire, two miles south of Tewkesbury. It stands within 250 yds. of the river Severn, on low land still liable to flood. The village is part of a strip of country bounded on the west by the Severn and on the east by a road, both of which afford direct communication between the cities of Gloucester and Worcester. Nearer the river was an ancient trackway between these places, passing through Deerhurst and Tewkesbury. Malvern Chase extended from the right bank of the river to the hills beyond. Deerhurst lay in that division of the kingdom of Mercia known as the land of the Hwiccas, which included a considerable tract of country now forming part of the counties of Worcester, Gloucester, and Warwick.

This Society published in vol. lxxii of Archaeologia an illustrated description of the almost complete series of the seals of the bishops of Durham, from William of St. Calais (1081) to Cuthbert Tunstall (1559), preserved in the treasury of the dean and chapter of Durham. This paper with the ensuing catalogue is an attempt to record the seals of later date belonging to the see and to the cathedral church of Durham, up to the abolition of what remained of the palatinate powers of the bishops in 1836. The writer thought that this would be a comparatively easy task but it has not been so, for after an exhaustive search in all likely places, the result has been disappointing; examples have been difficult to find, some of the bishops are not represented at all and others only by their great seals in chancery. The only examples of episcopal seals of dignity which have been found later than that of Barnes (pi. xiv, no. 2) are that of Cosin (pi. xvi, no. 3) and those of Trevor, Egerton, and Barrington (pi. xvii).

At the eastward extremity of Castle Hill, Scarborough, below medieval and Anglo-Saxon chapels and the foundations of a Roman signal-station, have been found several filled-up pits containing pottery fragments of a date long anterior to the work of about a.d. 370, as the Roman walls had been carried over some of them with no precautions against settlement, and the contents showed no admixture of Roman date. In fact there must have been an interval of several centuries, as the potsherds can hardly be later than La Tène I, and belong more probably to the first part of the Early Iron Age, generally named after Hallstatt, the typical site in Upper Austria. About half an acre has been excavated by Mr. F. G. Simpson, now Director of Romano-British Field-studies at Durham University, on behalf of the Scarborough Corporation, with the active co-operation of H. M. Office of Works; and a preliminary report on the Roman building has been written by our Fellow Mr. R. G. Collingwood for the Corporation (see also Archaeological Journal, lxxix, 390).

The paper which we have to lay before the Society marks a stage in, we will not say the end of, a long story. The exploration of the site of St. Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, has now been proceeding for over twenty-five years, and writing in 1901 on a group of early churches connected with St. Augustine's mission, one of us expressed the hope that his own church of St. Peter and St. Paul, and that of St. Mary built to the east of it a few years later, might one day be added to the list of those of which actual remains have come down to us. This hope is now happily fulfilled, even more completely than we had reason to expect, and the occasion is one for congratulation to antiquaries generally, but particularly to the bursar of St. Augustine's College, our Fellow the Rev. R. U. Potts, who has superintended the work for the last thirteen years, and to whose devotion and unremitting energy its success is chiefly due.

The series of carved and sculptured stones built into the walls of the church of Breedon on the Hill, Leicestershire, has long attracted attention, not only by reason of the unusual excellence and delicacy of the carving but also from the remarkable forms that the carving itself assumes. The fact that, in spite of some timid opposition in the past, the theory that these carvings are the work of late twelfth-century craftsmen has hitherto held the field, is sufficient excuse for my bringing the subject before the Society, believing as I do that an entirely wrong date has been assigned. The alternative date—the latter part of the eighth century—which I shall put forward, will, if established, at once place the series in a foremost position in the history of English art, and supply an entirely new chapter in its development.

The history of the monastery of Reculver is short and scanty. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that in 669 Egbert, king of Kent, gave ‘Raculf’ to Bassa, the mass priest, mynster to tymbrianne. Ten years later there occurs a grant by King Lothair of Kent to Brihtwald, abbot of the monastery of ‘Raculf’, showing that the monastery was then in being. In 692 abbot Brihtwald was made Archbishop of Canterbury, a promotion unlikely to have come to the head of a small and obscure house. In 747 King Eadberht of Kent granted to Abbot Denebach the toll of one ship in Fordwich, and in 761 was himself buried in the abbey church. After that no record survives, except that in 949 King Edred granted Reculver and its possessions to the archbishopric of Canterbury. The abbey may have been laid waste by the Danes; at any rate it had evidently ceased to exist as a monastic house by the tenth century. It continued thenceforward as a parish church, and remained in use till 1805, when on account of its distance from the houses of parishioners it was abandoned and partly pulled down. Its western towers, with their wooden spires, were left standing as a seamark, and came under the control of the Trinity House. Finally in 1925 the church and its site were placed in the charge of the Commissioners of Works under the terms of the Ancient Monuments Act of 1913.

Ancient Horology is a fascinating but most difficult study, hampered by imperfect observation, the repetition of gross errors, and the free acceptance of mere tradition; so wide and deep is the confusion that careful students have now become cautious and sceptical even in accepting fairly admissible evidence. A contributory factor has been the undue separation of mechanical and artistic considerations, for mechanicians have attempted to form judgements based solely upon technical peculiarities, while artistic antiquaries have perhaps shunned the dark and oily wheels and levers hidden away in the dusty clock-chamber or tower. Certain types of clockwork cannot be dated unless there is ornament, but due attention to records, to mechanism, and to ornament, makes it at least possible to correct many erroneous traditions and false theories.

So much has been written about the Beauchamp Chapel that it is impossible to give any description without repeating more or less well-known facts, but with the exception of the glass, which in part was dealt with very fully by Dr. Hardy in 1909, writers have been content to generalize with regard to its detail; though J. G. Waller, writing on Christian Iconography in the Gentleman's Magazine in 1850 and 1851, used figures from the mullions of the east window to illustrate his subject.