It might also, although only partially artificial, have been used as a barrow, as I have suggested with respect to Cruckbarrow Hill. It is remarkable that this hill closely corresponds in character with the following description of Irish crom-lechs in the "Archæologia," Vol. xvi., p. 268:-"Taimhleacht Lochlanna,that is to say, The Monument of the Danes,' a stupendous and beautiful pyramid of earth, having a spiral footway from the base to the summit. This Leacht is encircled by an extensive and broad rampart of earth, probably where the congregation of the people assembled; by the country people called a Mote.'"

CASTLE MORTON;

OR, MORTON FOLLIOT.

We also examined a tumulus in this chapelry, of an oval form, and situated near the chapel, not far from Buddenhill. It appears to be about 190 yards round the base, and thirty yards along the top, and is said to be fifty feet in height. It has a deep trench round the south side, and an agger fourteen yards across. It is called "Castle Tump," and was most probably the foundation of the keep of an ancient castle said to have stood there*.

Dr. Thurnam, in communicating to the Archæological Institute a description of an ancient tumulus (probably of about the eighth cen tury) at Lamel Hill, near York, after describing the discovery of several relics, states as follows::The most interesting object found at the same level, is, however, the brass seal of the keeper of a chapel dedicated to the blessed Mary at Morton Folliot. This seal (see the woodcut) is probably of the fourteenth or fifteenth century, and bears

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the inscription, 'S'. Comune C'todi Capelle be Marie de Mort'

* Vide Nash, Vol. ii., p. 109.

+ See the "Journal of the Institute," Vol. vi., pp. 35, 36.

Folliot.' It has for a device a figure of the Virgin and Child, and beneath, that of an ecclesiastic with the hands uplifted in the attitude of prayer. It is difficult to understand how this seal can have made its way from Morton Folliot in Worcestershire to Lamel Hill*.

"The discovery of this seal, and of counters, at the depth at which they were found†, seems to afford the proof that the upper part of this mound has been disturbed within the last 300 years. I incline, indeed, to a conjecture that the hill was turned over and raised to a greater height by Fairfax's army in 1644, for the purpose of obtaining a more commodious site for their battery."

Lamel Hill is also further described in the Journal of the Institute, Vol. vi., p. 123, &c.

It has since been doubted whether the seal was found at Lamel Hill. This, however, is of little moment, as it is a very interesting relic.

Dr. Nash, in his account of Castle Morton, Vol. i., p. 109, says as follows :—

"This Morton, lying in the parish of Longdon, is comprised in "Domesday Book" in the survey of Longdon §. It is uncertain whether Castle Morton or Morton Foliot be the original name. The hill, which is situated on the south, near the chapelyard of Morton, was the foundation of the keep of the castle, and gave name to Castle Morton; and the castle, as it is formed like the Conqueror's castles, was in all probability nearly coeval with the Conquest; and this village is called Morton Foliot in the appropriation of Longdon parsonage, which proves that the Foliots did anciently inhabit here. We may hence conclude, that the Foliots of Morton Foliot were formerly owners of the castle of Castle Morton, but that the castle subsisted before their time."

* "Castle Morton, Worcestershire, was anciently known as Morton Folliot." + Seven feet.

This seal is also figured and described in the "Proceedings of the Archaeological Institute at Lincoln, in 1848," p. 46.

§ Part of the possessions of the Monastery of Westminster. See Nash, Vol. ii., pp. 107, 114.

Two sepulchral Roman urns, containing burnt human bones, were, in or about the year 1832, dug up at Powick village, at the point of the tongue of land between the roads leading to Upton and Malvern. They lay about nine feet below the surface. One of the urns was accidentally broken to pieces; but the other is quite perfect, of a fine shape, made of red earth, eleven inches high, and nine inches in diameter; the mouth five inches, and the neck and bottom respectively three and a half inches across. The perfect urn has a double rim round the mouth, two indented lines round the small and thick portion of the neck, and two similar lines encircle the part which may be termed the shoulder. (See woodcut thereof.) The broken urn is one inch smaller than the perfect one, a little inferior in manufacture, and has only a single rim round the mouth, and is without the indented lines. These sepulchral urns were deposited simply in the ground, without a tumulus, according to the usual manner of the Romans. They are now in the Worcestershire Museum, and were presented by the late Right Honourable the Earl of Coventry.

A little to the west of the village of Powick, on the brink of the same range of elevated ground, two urns, similar in size to those already described, were about the year 1833, dug up*; they contained the bones of children;-parts of the cranium, with their sutures, and some of the bones of the arm, were, at the time they were discovered, entire; but, having been deposited in a wet spot, they, shortly after they were found, crumbled to pieces upon exposure to the air.

A coin of Claudius Gothicus, and of Constantine, jun., were also found in the same neighbourhood, and are now in the Worcester Museum.

The village of Powick is three miles from Worcester, and situated within a mile of the Teme, on the north, and about the same distance from the Severn, on the east.

* This discovery was made at the time of the additions to Ham Hill House.

BETWEEN the village of Eckington and the river Avon, a Roman or Roman-British pan or basin, of whitish material, was found by the railway excavators, several feet deep in the earth. It was presented to the Worcestershire Museum by Mr. Milne, one of the contractors, who informed me that several ancient foundations of buildings were discovered at the same spot. The woodcut No. 1 represents the basin one

sixth of the actual size. Nos. 2 and 3 are half-size sketches of two marks which are upon the rim of the basin near the spout.

A basin, nearly similar, is delineated in "Old England," Part ii., p. 44, amongst a collection entitled, "Roman Antiquities found on the site of Paul's Cross." A fragment of another, which was found about 1778, on digging at Duntocher, in Stirlingshire, together with other pottery and relics, said to be Roman, may be seen in Gough's "Camden," where it is

* Second edition, Vol. vi., Pl. vi., p. 103. Also see the edition of 1789, Vol. iii, p. 362.

described as

a piece of a vase, like our wash-hand basins* of white clay, which has the maker's name in raised capitals on the

There has been much dispute concerning the position of this Roman station; it most probably lay near to the village of Eckington, where ancient foundations were discovered by the workmen in the line of the railway near the Avon, as before described. Upon an inspection of this spot, I found it to be about two hundred yards from the north side of the village, and within three-quarters of a mile of the river. Mr. Milne and one of the workmen pointed out to me where the relics lay, and informed me that during the cutting for the railroad they discovered there, at the depth of several feet, a great many human bones, fragments of pottery, drains, bricks, stone foundations of buildings, and a rough quoined well, about four feet wide and ten feet deep, which passed through about four feet of soil and six feet of gravel, and was filled up with earth and rubble, having fragments of the bones and horns of the ox and deer species at the bottom, which was shaped like a basin; and that two other quoined wells were discovered there, filled with blackish earth. I found some specimens of the pottery in the mound of earth and gravel which had been thrown out there, some resembling the Roman or Roman-British pan, before described, as discovered at this excavation, and others exactly like the Roman red earth pottery which I found at Kempsey. See further particulars relative to Ad Antonam," in the account of the Rycknield Street, where the subject comes more regularly under notice.

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STRENSHAM.

There is an old trench road which passes not far from the cottage where Butler, the author of "Hudibras," is said to have

*They are by some antiquaries described as "mortaria.".

+ Or it may mean, Bruscus fecit.

See page 54, &c.