Other objects of interest have been found in Stixwould. My friend, the late Vicar, {155b} writes “I found two glass ‘bottle stamps,’ 1⅜ ins. in diameter; one of these has the figure of a dog, and ‘Rowles,’ in printed letters, beneath it; the other has ‘Anth. Boulton, Stixwo. 1722.’ The Boultons lived at the ‘Abbey farm’ for several generations, until the one (already mentioned) who committed murder. The bottles were made more like ship decanters, or the flagons of Australian wines, than our ordinary bottles. I also found many small pieces of mediæval pottery, some pieces of ‘puzzle jugs,’ with holes, and the neck of a ‘pilgrim’s bottle,’ of Cistercian ware, so called, as I was told by the late Sir Augustus Franks, of the British Museum, because it has only been found on the sites of Cistercian houses. The colour of mediæval pottery is as superior to the modern as ancient glass is to that of the present day, and it is sometimes tastefully ornamented with finger marks. The stone coffins, by the tower of Stixwould Church, were dug up where the Abbey Church formerly stood, in the field at the back of the present Abbey farm orchard.” There are several large blocks of stone, at different farmyards, which came from the Abbey. The stocks, until a few years ago, stood in the centre of the junction of the Horsington and Woodhall Spa roads, at the east end of the village street. HORSINGTON.—About two miles from Stixwould, north-eastward, is Horsington, its name, probably, being compounded of the Saxon elements horse-ing-ton _i.e._, the village with horse-meadows; that the central syllable is not the patronymic “ing” is evident, since about a mile away we have, also, Poolham “Ings,” which are rich meadow lands on that, the adjoining, manor. The present church of Horsington is modern, having been built in 1860, of brick, with stone dressings, in place of a previous very poor thatched structure, into which one entered by a descent of two steps, with something of the feeling of descending into a dripping well. The present edifice is neat, but of no great architectural merit, and is already, in parts, becoming dilapidated, the stonework of the spire being much weatherworn. It is not, however, strictly speaking, the parish church, but rather a chapel of ease. The ancient church was “All Hallows,” the site of which is shewn by a mound in the fields to the south-west of the present village, at a point which is almost equi-distant from Stixwould in the south, Bucknall to the west, and Horsington village itself; and is said, traditionally, to have been the common church of all three parishes before their present churches were built. Separated from it now by a small drain is the old burial ground. Tradition connects this site with the Fire-ceremony of November, in British times, once prevalent in Asia, as well as Europe, and even in America. The beginning of the year was then fixed by the culminating of the constellation Pleiades, in November.