His contention is not unlike that of Canon Morris, only he gives an earlier date. He says: “The shop of the ambulatory, with its covered way, is perpetuated in the shop in the Row. The stall for traders on the steps finds its lineal descendant in the shop in the streets. The covering over the Rows has given way before the growth of the houses to the front, economising space, and affording better living accommodation. Without any great revolution in design or architecture, the Rows have developed by a natural growth on the lines of the ancient design of Roman Chester.” “When doctors differ who shall decide?” It may not be possible to come to a definite conclusion on the matter; but, personally, I think that the contention of Mr. Harrod, advanced in a paper read before the Chester Archæological Society on 19th February 1901, and supported by arguments and illustrations, is a most reasonable one, which at any rate commends itself to my humble judgment. The mere mention of these various theories may perhaps lead some of our readers to take even greater interest in the Rows of Chester, and remind the dwellers in both city and county that in them they possess a great and unique treasure. THE HALF-TIMBERED ARCHITECTURE OF CHESHIRE By C. H. Minshull “He that hewed timber out of the thick trees: was known to bring it to an excellent work.” Albeit this paper is to confine itself to the domestic or secular side of the subject, and this quotation might even more suitably serve as his text by the author treating exclusively of the ecclesiastical examples of timber-framed buildings, yet its appropriateness may warrant these words forming a sort of superscription for what is after all part and parcel of one theme. While it may be conceded that Cheshire can count many extant memorials of greater historic importance and of longer lineage than any of those remaining recorded in that particular kind of “black and white” coming within our present immediate purview, it may nevertheless be claimed that these specimens of the carpenter’s craft constitute by no means the least charming and characteristic of the county’s architectural possessions.