church was built. It has, indeed, been asserted that an urn was dug up in the churchyard itself, but of this I can obtain no confirmation. The late incumbent, the Rev. R. H. Anketell, for the loan of whose manuscript I am indebted to Miss Stebbing, strongly argued that the church was erected on a barrow, but Mr Wright’s observations do not verify this hypothesis. A second discovery, however, was made under the church and in the churchyard during the recent restoration of the building. This consisted of a number of boulders, some vertical, others recumbent, pitted with what are popularly known as “pebble-holes.” The stones were all devoid of tooling. The proximate origin of the stones was the Boulder Clay of the district. Two of the blocks were found under the angles of the tower, two others came from beneath the chancel, while three were situated in, or near, the churchyard. It is also known that other specimens had been carried away in past times, for the purpose of repairing walls and farm buildings. Mr Anketell considered that the church had been built over a stone-circle, but one must hesitate a little before yielding assent. The group of stones may represent a portion of the builder’s stock, yet we must interpret the discovery by the light of similar occurrences. It should be added, as establishing another bond of continuity, that Roman pottery is turned up from time to time in the neighbourhood. In pondering the foregoing examples, we ought frequently to call to our aid comparative customs in more remote parts of the British Isles. Taking Ireland, for instance, it will be seen that that country is fertile in the kind of evidence so deplorably scanty in those portions of Britain which have been most disturbed and overrun by the spoiler. One instance alone, as related by Mr W. G. Wood-Martin, will exemplify the difference in the quality of the evidence. In the graveyard of the very early church at St John’s Point, co. Down, there were discovered numerous pagan graves arranged in a circle. Within this series, and arranged concentrically, was another ring of smaller graves, while the common centre was marked by a stone pillar[236]. After this concluding example, we may sum up this side of the evidence. Occasionally, it must be admitted, the juxtaposition of pagan and Christian burials may be the result of coincidence. Pre-Christian burials are so abundant and so widely scattered that, by chance, the church builders may have stumbled on a forgotten cemetery. But this explanation will not cover the whole of the cases. While it may be urged, with respect to the Alphamstone cemetery, that there was probably a break in continuity, due to the slackening of folk-memory, the objection is manifestly irrelevant to the Taplow barrow, which must have been a conspicuous object when the foundations of the church were being laid. Even with examples of the Alphamstone type, there is the witness of tradition and superstition to be heard.