Émile Mâle says that medieval Christian art in its last period had lost touch with the great tradition of symbolism which had been so important in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and still largely dominated the art of the fourteenth. But there was one great symbolical idea which survived, and that was the harmony of the Old and New Testaments; and so we find among the most popular subjects of fifteenth-century Church art the concordance of the Apostles and Prophets in the Creed, and the series of parallels between the life of Jesus and episodes of Old Testament history, which were summed up and digested in the Biblia Pauperum and the Speculum Humanae Salvationis. The reason for the popularity of these subjects was, no doubt, their didactic value, and though Mâle does not develop this side of the subject, we may say that one, though not the only, characteristic of the religious art of the fifteenth century was that, instead of being symbolical, it became didactic. We find in this period a whole series of subjects which reduced the articles of Christian faith and practice to pictorial form, and seem to have been intended to illustrate the medieval catechism by which the teaching of the Church was imparted.

In the course of the archaeological investigations of the Cromer Forest Bed I am carrying out under the auspices of the Percy Sladen Fund, I found, during 1927, the Chellean handaxe here described (figs. 1, 1a, 1b, 1c, and 1d). The specimen was lying upon the foreshore at West Runton, where, at low water, a very extensive spread of flints is exposed resting upon the chalk. There is no doubt. that the vast bulk of these stones has been derived, as at Cromer, East Runton, and elsewhere, from the slow disintegration, by sea-action, of a highly ferruginous deposit which, at many places along the Norfolk coast, can be seen lying at the base of the Forest Bed. The specimen now to be described, like so many others found upon the foreshore sites mentioned, exhibits a patination in every way comparable with that of certain flint implements and flakes discovered in place in the ferruginous deposit alluded to, and was, without question, derived from it. The colour of the flint is a light chestnut brown, in places ochreous, with large areas of speckled purple—a combination of shades which, to those who are familiar with the flints in the base of the Forest Bed, makes it clear that any stone so patinated and found upon the north-east coast of Norfolk, came from this accumulation.

The excavation of Roman Alchester, begun in 1925—6 under the auspices of the Oxford branch of the Classical Association, was continued for nearly four weeks during August and September, 1927. The object of this year's work being to discover something of the plan and lay-out of the town in its successive periods, the region selected for this purpose was the vicinity of the east gateway of the town, and several points along the line of the rampart between that and the north-east corner mound.

Among the heirlooms of the Boughey family at Aqualate Hall, Forton, Staffordshire (close to the eastern boundary of Shropshire), are two small bowls, originally joined as one vessel, which have been inventoried as ‘Roman Pottery’. Mrs. John Morris, who has recently inherited the property, remembers them from her childhood, and was always given to understand that they were found in draining the swamps that lie to the north of Aqualate Mere and west of Thistleyfield Coppice, in the time of her grandfather, Sir Thomas Boughey, Bart., some seventy years ago, when trenches full of bones, armour, and (reputed) Roman pottery were discovered. Most of the finds were kept in an outhouse, but the two pots were preserved in a cabinet in the Hall, together with a big dagger, the blade much corroded; Mrs. Morris thought it was of iron with a brass or bronze handle; unfortunately, it has now vanished and all the other objects are lost with the exception of the twin bowls. These Mrs. Morris most kindly allowed me to study and sketch in June 1928.

In March 1926, workmen engaged on the erection of a garage for Mr. S. Cooper in Cypress Road, Shide, a suburb of Newport, Isle of Wight, exposed a portion of tessellated pavement. Advised of this find, as local secretary, I visited the site and with the consent of the owner stopped further operations pending decision as to future development. Without delay a committee of investigation was formed, excavation was decided on, and I was asked to undertake the supervision of the work.