hibitor being Mr. C. J. Lea, of High Street, Lutterworth. This decoration is of an exalted order, and is one of the most successful ornamental developments in the entire Exhibition; the striking characters being the feeling of quiet which prevails, the softness of colouring, the purity of forms, and the excellence of the composition."

MR. HUNT exhibited a specimen of the "snaphaunce," the parent of the flint lock, which so long held its position till superseded by the percussion cap. It was called the snaphaunce from the irregulars who used it in the Low Countries, a set of marauders, termed by the Dutch, on account of their propensities,-"snophaus," or poultry stealers. It answered their purpose better than the old matchlock, which, with its burning tinder, was apt to betray their whereabouts. Its construction was simple and effective; a flat piece of furrowed steel was placed on a small moveable post of iron, secured, but not tightly, by a screw just below the pan. Then a piece of sharp flint was placed in the jaws of the cock, which, being released by the trigger, struck down upon the face of the notched plate, and produced the sparks.

MR. HUNT further produced for inspection a curious metal pectoral dyptich (there being means of passing a cord or chain through it, for suspension round the neck) about an inch square when closed. It was apparently a work of Russian art, exceedingly rude in execution. When closed, the outer decoration of one side, or cover, presented a cross, on either side of which were emblems of the passion-a spear, and a reed bearing a sponge; under the cross a skull. The other cover was ornamented by a rose or star. Upon opening the dyptich one side presented the Virgin and Child in the upper portion, under which were two figures. The other side contained the figure of an aged man apparently bearing a book in his left hand, whilst the right was held up in the act of blessing; here again were two figures, one on either side. The figures were all raised considerably, and had each a nimbus round the head; but were so far worn as to preclude a more definite description.

LATIMER'S HOUSE AT THURCASTON.

MR. JAMES THOMPSON read the following Paper :

IN the village of Thurcaston there are still standing two old houses, each designated by its occupiers and others "Latimer's House."

One of these stands near the church. It has three gables. It is of early Elizabethan date. It is lighted by two windows in front, each of which consists of six lights, divided by a transom.

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Just above the upper window, and on the horizontal line from which the gables spring, is a band on which an inscription is still visible. Rendered into modern spelling it reads thus: "THIS HOUSE WAS BUILDED ANNO DOMINI 1558, AND IN THE FIRST YEAR OF THE REIGN of our soVEREIGN LADY, QUEEN ELIZABETH, BY ME NICHOLAS GROSVENOR."

This fabric speaks for itself, therefore; but it is alleged that an older house occupied the site, and that in that was born the Martyr of Thurcaston.

The other house which claims to have once sheltered Latimer, and to have been his own and his father's and sisters' home, stands a short distance northward of the church, on the left hand side of the visitor as he walks away from that building in the direction of Rothley. This house is rude and homely in its exterior. Seen as it is approached from the church, it offers one side of its timber framework to view. The original structure was made of strong beams of oak; the interstices being of mud, for which bricks have been substituted. In one place, however, a square of mud still remains to attest the original condition of the fabric. A foundation wall built of forest stone, of five feet above the ground, formed the basis on which the timber framework was laid, and it still remains. In the interior, the woodwork is all of oak, of strength and thickness surprising to modern builders: the oak staircase is firm under the tread as if built of stone, or as if it were solid rock. The boarding of stairs and doors is left as it was sawn from the tree, with the original "saw jinks" visible, except where the busy housewives have polished it in their labours during the past three or four hundred years. Throughout the house the beams and timbers have been fastened together by oaken pegs, seven or eight inches long, no nail of iron having been seen in the original fabric. All was throughout strong, rude, plain, and palpable, no disguise of artist's trickery concealing the frank simplicity of the construction.

Of one peculiar feature some indications are still left. At the north end of the present building-that is, the ancient part of it, not the comparatively modern smithy-is a chamber, directly accessible from the street. A doorway, to which steps of forest stone outside conducted, admitted to the chamber. Within the door there were three stairs, and then the dormitory, twenty feet long by eighteen wide, was entered. This has been considered to be the Guest Chamber, in which, in an age when inns were unknown in secluded hamlets, our ancestors offered to the benighted wayfarer a refuge from the storm and the tempest. As there are traces, behind the house, of a broad dyke leading to the bridge, and as the tradition is that the old road from Leicester over the Forest lay by this house, the supposition is not unreasonable that this Guest Chamber was provided for the shelter of travellers who, driven by stress of weather, in this once wild and thinly popu

lated region, had no other harbours where they could find protection from "the peltings of the pitiless storm."

In the lower storey, the ground floor, was a roomy "house place," an apartment so well known in old farm houses, where substantial comfort is understood, but where pretension is not even affected. This would appear to have been the room in which the occupants of the house have always lived.

Now, it remains to determine which of these interesting fabrics was really Latimer's house.

I feel no hesitation in saying the latter.

The reasons for doing so are few, but seem to me to be decisive. For it should be remarked that the house built by Nicholas Grosvenor was the Manor House; and if it occupied the site of an older fabric, that would be the earlier Manor House. Nicholas Grosvenor was Lord of the Manor. The pedigree of the Grosvenors is on record. It shows that Richard Grosvenor of Eton, Cheshire, married Catherine, the third daughter of Richard Cotton, the Lord of the Manor of Thurcaston, in the reign of Edward IV. On the death of her father, this lady (a co-heiress) received as her share of her father's estate the manor and advowson of Thurcaston. The Manor House, therefore, became Richard Grosvenor's, and passed to his descendants, and here doubtless they resided. During part of the time in which the Grosvenors were settled at Thurcaston, the father of Latimer-a substantial yeoman, a tenant probably of the Grosvenors, who ploughed his fields, and whose wife milked his cows, and who required his son and daughters to help him,— dwelt in the old house up the town street, in his own comfortable and farmerlike household. To suppose that yeoman Latimer was living in Squire Grosvenor's house is a conjecture that needs no refutation. Improbable as such a circumstance would be now, it would be ten times more improbable in an age when social distinctions were more sharply defined and more rigidly marked. It cannot, I think, be doubted that the house near the church was always the Manor House, inhabited by the village 'squires, and that the house in the street was a yeoman's dwelling, such as Hugh Latimer's father lived in. "My father," says the MartyrBishop in one of his sermons, was a yeoman, and had no land of his own, only he had a farm of £3. or £4. by year at the uttermost, and hereupon he tilled so much as kept a half dozen men. He had walk for an hundred sheep, and my mother milked thirty kine."

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I have pleasure in exhibiting by the obliging permission of Mr. Dudgeon, the artist, a drawing of Latimer's house, taken from the rear of the building. In local colouring and fidelity to detail it is admirable. I also lay before the Society a pleasing view of the bridge behind the house, a relic of the thirteenth or fourteenth century, which is almost equal in interesting association to the

house itself; as it and the scene around were once as familiar to Hugh Latimer's eyes as his own home, and as his daily road lay over this bridge to the meadows beyond. Both pictures are intended to be placed in the forthcoming Exhibition in the Town Museum, and will constitute two of its chiefest attractions to all interested in our county history and antiquities.

THE REV. J. H. HILL then read the following

NOTES UPON ALEXTON CHURCH, LEICESTERSHIRE. THIS church is interesting chiefly from the various changes it has undergone at different periods.

It is described in the old terrier of glebe lands, &c., dated 1638, as "consisting of one allie or ile, and the steeple having four small bells," and as such it continued until the commencement of the restoration now in progress. But it bore traces of having been a much larger church, with north and south aisles. The arcades of these aisles remained with their arches filled up and plain squareheaded windows inserted.

The north side of the nave is the oldest part of the church; its two Norman arches being fine specimens of twelfth century work. These arches are richly carved, and of different patterns. The one is a zigzag, and the other enriched lozenge with scolloped labels. The central pillar is round, with the usual bold square abacus. The two responds are of the same character, except that the face of the capital of the westernmost is curiously ornamented with circular work. These arches were at one time frescoed. The two responds seem to indicate that the original aisle consisted of two bays, but it was afterwards lengthened, as another semi-circular arch of plainer work can be traced on the outside, and a small portion of it also on the inside close to the tower.

The chancel arch was taken down at the beginning of the present century, but the half pillars that supported it were left. These are round with capitals plainly foliated, and square abaci, having their corners chamfered or cut off. The mortised holes in the pillars show that at one time there was a rood screen.

The south arcade of the nave consisted of three bays, with pointed arches and octagonal pillars. The mouldings, etc., indicate that this aisle was of decorated style, but of rather poor character. The respond at the east end is weak, and the work throughout rather rough. Several portions of square-headed windows have been found during the present restoration built up in the walls; these in all probability belonged to the south aisle.

The chancel, like the body of the church, has undergone some changes, as it bears traces of having been lengthened some years after the portion nearest the nave was built, the south wall not

being in a straight line, and the side windows of different dates. These windows consist of two lights. Of the earlier ones, that on the south side has geometrical tracery, the other is plain lancet shaped. On the north side there is also a small one light leper's window with cusps, corresponding exactly in shape with the piscina within the altar space and on the south side. These may all be considered as early decorated, and probably are of the same date. There is no doubt that this chancel was subsequently lengthened, and the piscina was then removed to its present position. The later windows are square-headed, and that on the south side has poor debased tracery. The east window of this period was probably removed, and the unsightly churchwarden's window inserted, when the monument by the side of it, bearing date 1726, was erected. There is one peculiar feature about the chancel arch not yet mentioned, viz., that the shaft of the southern respond stands back about a foot from the place it should occupy on the base. The question is was it originally left so, or was it moved at some subsequent time?

The porch on the south side was probably built at the time when the aisles were removed and the arches filled in. It had this inscription over the doorway, "Edward Andrews the founder hereof. Ao. Dmn., 1594. R.E. 36, Deo gracias."* It was built out of the materials of the original porch, as the shafts of the doorway arch were of decorated character, corresponding to the aisle. Instead of the arch a flattish stone was placed upon them. The gable was ornamented with two grotesque and rudely carved figures of animals, much older than the Elizabethan finial set up between them.

The doorway into the church was circular-headed, but without any ornament, and most likely was a portion of the Norman doorway of the north aisle.

The tower was built within the nave, and upon three arches, all of which were filled up about fifty years ago to support the tower, which was deemed unsafe. The side arches seem to indicate that it was built while the aisle was standing on the south side; in the masonry that filled up the last bay of the arcade, is a squareheaded window, now blocked up. It was most likely inserted to admit light into the belfry after the removal of the aisle.

The dates of the various parts of the church are probably as follows:-The Norman arches on the north side and the chancel arch about 1160 (Henry II.); the western portion of the chancel at the end of the thirteenth century, the period of transition from Early English to Decorated (Edward I.); the south aisle the middle of the fifteenth century (Edward III.); the tower and eastern portion of the chancel about 1500 (Henry VII.); both aisles re- ' moved and porch built 1594 (36th of Elizabeth).

Vide Burton's History respecting Andrews, etc.