In 1750 our President, the Duke of Somerset, who had been elected in 1724 when the Marquis of Hertford died. We elected in his place the Duke of Richmond whose portrait, given by our Fellow Richard Hatchwell in 1995, hangs on our stairs: Richmond attended the St George's Day dinner in 1750 but did little more for the Society until his death in November of the same year. Our Vice-President Martin Folkes, who had been President of the Royal Society since 1741 in succession to Sir Hans Sloane, was elected in Richmond's place. Folkes successfully steered the Society towards the Royal Charter granted by King George II, our ‘Founder and Patron’, on 2 November 1751, whose 250th anniversary we shall be celebrating next year, although by that time Folkes, who had suffered a paralytic stroke on 26 September, was incapable. A Fellow since 1720, Folkes's main interests were Roman antiquities and English coins. He was not universally beloved: Stukeley called him ‘an arrant infidel and loud scoffer’ who ‘believes nothing of a future state, of the Scriptures of revelation.’ On 2 June 1858 what was said to be Folkes's cocked hat was presented to the Cocked Hat Club. Late last year the Society was able to purchase at Christie's a more reliable relic in the form of Folkes's portrait painted by Jonathan Richardson in 1718, which now hangs behind the President's Chair, 250 years after Folkes's election to that office. Richardson, the painter, although not a Fellow, is worthy of respect in antiquarian circles: An Account of the Statues and Bas-reliefs, Drawings and Pictures in Italy, France etc, with Remarks, edited from his son's Grand Tour notes, and first published in London in 1722, was valued by our Honorary Fellow, the Abbé Winckelmann, and a French edition was issued at Amsterdam in 1728. Our Library has the first edition, left to the Society by our Fellow Arthur Ashpitel in 1869. The 1754 second London edition and the 1728 Amsterdam edition are surely desiderata.

This paper looks at the issue of archaeological remains as a constraint to development within the modern land-use planning system. It examines the application of current national policy guidance found in Planning Policy Guidance Notes PPG15 and PPG16. It also discusses a number of issues raised by the current practices of professional archaeologists (and architectural historians involved with archaeological issues) within the development control process. It concludes that their increased professional involvement requires, in turn, a greater responsibility by those individuals, as expert witnesses, to ensure not only for the content of their letters and written reports but also for the consequences of their recommendations, which all have increasing significance, legally as well as commercially. Furthermore, if quality and reasonableness are to be maintained in balance then the relevant professional bodies will need to review, more carefully, their professional practices and responsibilities.

The discovery of a pair of armlets from Lockington and the re-dating of the Mold cape, add substance to a tradition of embossed goldworking in Early Bronze Age Britain. It is seen to be distinct in morphology, distribution and decoration from the other previously defined traditions of goldworking of the Copper and Early Bronze Ages, which are reviewed here. However, a case is made for its emergence from early objects employing ‘reversible relief to execute decoration and others with small-scale corrugated morphology. Emergence in the closing stages of the third millennium BC is related also to a parallel development in the embossing of occasional bronze ornaments. Subsequent developments in embossed goldwork and the spread of the technique to parts of the Continent are summarized. The conclusions address the problem of interpreting continuity of craft skills against a very sparse record of relevant finds through time and space.

There are indications that some whole relics of saints in England, who had never been canonized officially, were subjected to a change in status during the Middle Ages, being demoted and sometimes promoted again. Some of these demotions follow the fourth Lateran Council of 1215 when it was decreed that relics newly found could not be venerated without papal permission. In this article a few of these cases are examined, in particular those of St William of Norwich, St Amphibalus and his companions at St Albans, and the Venerable Bede at Durham; and in the light of these, the movements of the relics of St Swithun and St Birinus at Winchester are also examined. The site of the last resting place of St William of Norwich is discussed in an Appendix.

This paper provides a comprehensive description of St Davids Bishop's Palace. Almost completely built under the patronage of Bishop Henry de Gower (1328–47), it represents the most remarkable secular building in the Decorated style. Detailed analysis of each elevation of the palace has enabled sixteen phases of work to be identified, nine of which are grouped into three building campaigns sponsored by Bishop de Gower. This has enabled the evolution of the plan and the functions of the different rooms to be identified. The two main ranges of the palace are decorated with a unique, arcaded parapet, containing over 130 carved corbels, with other sculpture surviving internally. This represents the largest group of sculpture in a domestic building of this period and a detailed catalogue and analysis is presented. Both the architectural detailing and the sculpture show that the master craftsmen had close links with the Bristol school of the Decorated period.

The great eighth-century earthwork on the frontier of Wales and England has been known for at least eleven hundred years as Offa's Dyke. Research into this work has been dominated by the need to find, or explain, the ‘missing’ stretches of the Dyke. The interpretation presented here is based on the known earthwork and does not involve the need to explain away any perceived gaps.

It has long been assumed that the Black Death totally devastated the brass engraving industry in England, but no previous study has focused specifically on this period. Stylistic analysis, particularly of the inscriptions, shows that there was continuity of production in the London A workshop right through the period of recurrent plague and that a second workshop, London B, was established towards the end of the 1350s. The workshops appear to have responded to a reduced supply of skilled labour by limiting their product range. The brasses of the plague years are modest in comparison with earlier brasses, though those commemorated were not of lower social status. No large figure brasses date from this decade, though significant numbers of minor compositions were produced. This temporary inability to supply elaborate, high-quality figure brasses enabled the Tournai ateliers to expand exports to England.

King Henry VIII's court provided a musically rich and diverse environment, in which the King was apparently an active participant, although care is needed in interpreting evidence for this. He played instruments, sang and composed music, promoted its performance and learning, and employed numerous English and foreign musicians as well as maintaining an accomplished Chapel Royal. Evidence from the Inventory of 1547 points to him having possessed various musical instruments and books possibly containing music. Many of the latter were for Chapel Royal use. Henry VIII's compositions raise questions about originality, technique and means of performance. Editorial treatment of his music has been influenced by the perceptions and expectations of later commentators and musicians.

This short paper examines the presidency of Martin Folkes (1690–1754) and the events surrounding the incorporation of the Society by a Royal Charter from George II in 1751. Folkes was also president of the Royal Society of London, and a small number of Antiquaries feared that incorporation was a plot hatched by ‘a few designing members’ either to line their own pockets or to subsume their society into its older, wealthier rival. Folkes in turn was a controversial figure, renowned f or his irreligious beliefs and satirized for his poor government of the Royal Society.

During survey and recording work undertaken by the authors for the Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture project in Lincolnshire between 1984 and 1991, over 375 stones were analysed and some hundred or so new discoveries are reported in the final publication. The most important conclusions drawn by the volume relate to the identification, for the first time, of groups of Anglo-Scandinavian funerary monuments and to conclusions regarding political and ecclesiastical affiliations which can be drawn from their distribution patterns. This note seeks to bring to wider attention, however, a single find of greater importance to art-historical studies of the late Anglo-Saxon period, and one which stands to one side of our more general conclusions regarding Anglo-Scandinavian politics and religion in the East Midlands.

A description and analysis of the early roof at Kempley was published in the Journal fifteen years ago. At that time the roof was under repair and could be examined closely. Despite alterations in the seventeenth century, it was possible to reconstruct its original form on paper (fig 1). Its construction, in oak, with simple bare-faced lap-dovetail joints, and all members either horizontal or vertical, suggested an early date. The only direct parallels are on the Continent. The trusses could be shown to be integral with the walls, and a review of the evidence for the date of the masonry structure gave four possible models, two in the eleventh century and two at a date loosely referred to as ‘around 1120’. The author expressed a preference for the later date, and the arguments that supported it. Even so, if correct, it suggested that this was the earliest nave roof surviving in Britain.

The name of Conyers is most readily associated with the magnificent falchion, perhaps once belonging to Richard, Earl of Cornwall as King of the Romans, used until 1860 by the Conyers family as a sword of tenure of their lands at Sockburn from the Bishop of Durham, and now in the possession of the Cathedral. Another neglected work of some interest is linked to this Yorkshire family: a decorated charter, dated 27 October 1320, licensing by letters patent the alienation in mortmain by Robert of Conyers of lands in Hutton Conyers, near Ripon, to a chaplain for the daily celebration of divine service in the chapel of St John the Baptist at Hutton Conyers. The value of decorated charters in providing dated or datable evidence for illumination has been recognized by Elizabeth Danbury, who first published an illustration of the Hutton Conyers charter.

The uncertainty about Sir Hans Sloane's maternal family already existed in his own lifetime, and it is clear that both Sir Hans, and his brother William Sloane of Chelsea, had hazy knowledge of their mother's family. In 1726, both brothers applied for a grant of arms, almost thirty-five years after their mother's death. Sir Hans's scholarly biographer, Dr E St John Brooks, states that the associated pedigree records Sir Hans's mother as one Sarah Hickes, daughter of ‘Dr Hickes, an eminent divine, prebendary of the cathedral church of Winchester, and chaplain to Dr Laud, archbishop of Canterbury; and accompanying to Ireland Anne, the eldest daughter of Henry, earl of Monmouth, and wife of James Hamilton, Lord Viscount Claneboy and earl of Clanbrazil.

It is not surprising that the bronze oil lamp presented to the Society of Antiquaries by Sir Hans Sloane on 28 July 1736 (but ‘dug up at St Leonard's Hill, near Windsor’ in 1717 and published in 1718, fig 1) was considered to be Roman as it resembles oil lamps discovered in Herculaneum and Pompeii. However, the Roman lamps have a footring on their base, and not a drip pan, which is missing from the Society's lamp. It has since been identified as medieval. It resembles the thirteenth-century bronze sabbath lamp (fig 2) discovered in Bristol in 1976 on the site of New Jewry (1266–90) in Peter Street. The Bristol lamp has three spouts and the drip pan is also missing.

George Cruikshank published his satirical print depicting an imaginary meeting of the Society five weeks after one of the most controversial presidential elections in its history. The illustration (fig 1) was the main feature in his monthly magazine The Scourge issued on 1 June 1812 and the accompanying text shows his anonymous informant to have been hostile to the winning faction. ‘The newly elected president, Lord Aberdeen … was dragged into his present situation by the officious interference of impertinent friends, and the intrigues of an individual.’ He is shown addressing the meeting; nobody is listening. ‘The secretaryship of the society is committed to Nicholas Carlisle Esquire; the dull compiler of dull topographical dictionaries.’

In 1787 John Curr (1756–1823) started using the L-shaped rail underground at Sheffield. This, as far as we know, was the first use of this type of rail. Benjamin Outram (1764–1805) is generally thought to have been the major influence in the development of the surface plateway in South Wales but, from the recent evidence gathered, it appears that the tramroad or plateway arrived in South Wales from a different source. In February 1788 Plymouth Ironworks at Merthyr Tydfil cast 176 ‘Dram Plates’ for James Cockshutt of Cyfarthfa each weighing 441bs (19.96kg). Cockshutt hailed from Wortley Forge near Sheffield. Wortley lay only a few miles from where Curr used plateways for the first time. It was therefore Cockshutt who brought the plateway to South Wales.

In 1916 Horace Sandars, FSA offered to the Cocked Hats (a small dining club within the Society of Antiquaries) a replacement silver punchbowl. Interesting speculations about the origin of this bowl have been made over the years, and this Note seeks to find a truth behind the rumours. I include with grateful thanks information from John Hopkins, FSA, who has worked previously on this subject.