Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 5.djvu/449

ARCHAEOLOGICAL INTELLIGENCE. 329 stantine. The following potters' marks were noticed : ratini. — vbhc. — OF. CRES. pop.sibly the same as Crestio, whose wares are found at Exeter. Mr. Moultrie communicated at the same lime representations of a quern, now in his possession, which appears to be a remarkably good and perfect example of the ancient hand-mill. " It was discovered in digging for gravel on a conical hill called ' the Biggin?,' over which the Watling Street passes, about three miles from Rugby. Near it were found many human bones, together with leaden and stone rings and beads, supposed to be of Roman-British date ; and, at no great distance from the spot a morse, or fastening for the ecclesiastical cope, was found, apparently of the thirteenth century, supposed by Mr. Bloxam to have belonged to a monk of the neighbouring cell of Holywell, destroyed in 1320." The quern, of a form rarely found in perfect state, consists of an upper and lower stone, the upper surface of the latter being slightly convex, and raised at the margin ; the lower surface of the upper stone being rather hollow, to fit. The material appears to be the common mill-stone grit. The aperture at the side of the upper stone was probably contrived for the insertion of a handle ; whilst a wooden plug was inserted in the cavity in the lower stone (which is about an inch in diameter) and formed with a spindle, upon which the upper stone was placed, and turned ; the stones were thus kept in place, and the spindle only partially filling the cavity in the upper stone, the grain fell gradually through the passage from the small basin above, and was thrown out in flour at the sides. " I have myself worked the quern on this principle (Mr. Moultrie observes) and found it answer admirably." The querns of this form are of less common occurrence than the flat discs, mostly of coarse conglomerate, or " pudding stone," found in almost every part of England. A quern of similar fashion, found on Harthill Moor, Derby/shire, a district abounding in antiquities of the Early British age, is preserved in Mr. Bateman's Museum, and represented in his valuable "Vestiges of the Antiquities of Derbyshire," p. 127. _, SAXON PERIOD. The ancient bronze bell, of which representations are here submitted to our readers, has been assigned, with much probability, to Anglo-Saxon •■ There is a village called Biggin in Derbyshire, where many antiquities have been found.