Item, for 3 new bawdricks bought for the two large bells and the small one,-19d.

Item, for the pay of the master of the bell-workmen,-£9 2s. 2d., he receiving d. per lb., viz., for 3266 lbs. for the great bell; also for 1078 lbs. for the lesser bell. Also for 52 lbs. for the four "poles".

Total,-£15 18s. 5 d.

In 1630 the Master of the Ordnance received a warrant commanding him to deliver "two brazen sakers" to the Lieutenant of Dover Castle to be converted into bells. The small bell now hanging in the vestry, dated 1639, may be one of those cast from these cannons. Royal orders were not obeyed with much rapidity at that time.

The Pharos served as a bell tower until the desecration of the church in 1780, when, according to the usual belief, the bells were transferred by a Government order to Portsmouth. Local tradition says this order was never carried out, and the bells were placed in the church tower of St. Margaret-at-Cliffe. This gave rise to a popular saying that "Portsmouth bells can be heard at St. Margaret's". The bells were probably melted down and used for other purposes.

The present condition of this ancient structure is pitiable in the extreme. Roofless, and disfigured with a patchwork of cobble and flint, it is a perpetual witness of a parsimony which allows the most ancient building in England to be destroyed because it has no further military or naval value.

St. Mary-in-the-Castle.

This ancient church is certainly one of the most interesting buildings standing in England, and has greatly exercised the minds of succeeding generations of antiquaries. The date of its first erection has been variously ascribed to periods ranging from early Roman times to

the end of the eleventh century. In the middle ages it was commonly spoken of as "King Lucius his Church," but no credence can be attached to a theory so evidently founded on monkish fables. Different writers on the subject have ascribed it to "a late Roman date,” “the middle of the fourth century," "the days of Godwin," or to "the latest Saxon period". The question, then, as to when this church was first erected is one evidently bristling with difficulties, and we propose, therefore, before attempting to answer it, to lay before our readers all the facts connected with the subject that have been discovered.

The church having been in ruins for a considerable number of years, Sir Gilbert Scott was commissioned to restore it in 1860. As the foundations were then laid bare, a considerable amount of information was obtained which could not otherwise have been gained. An account of his work was published by Sir G. Scott in a paper written for the Archæologia Cantiana in 1862, and his own observations were supplemented by "Memoranda by Mr. Marshall, Clerk of the Works". Canon Puckle, who had received permission from the then Secretary of State for War to do so, made an independent examination of the building during the progress of the work, and published, in 1864, the results of his labours in a book entitled The Church and Fortress of Dover Castle. From a careful study of these authorities we gather the following mass of reliable information.

1. The foundations were laid upon a "uniform and excellent bottom, formed of very stiff clay with a large proportion of flints intermixed". It is worthy of note that the adjoining Pharos is built upon a similar foundation, and that an excellent chalk bed was obtainable had it been desired.

2. The foundations are "fairly laid, on a great breadth, and evenly built up," and "appear nothing like what they would have been in Eadbald's day, a mass of blocks and rubble roughly jammed and grouted together". They are built in "something like courses," stones of considerable size are worked in, and flat stones are used as bonds. Rising to the set off, we find that useful member shaped and made as by well-experienced hands, and even a particular kind of stone selected, and worked in so as to diminish by a strong bevel to the next thickness of the wall."

3. The foundations of the tower are continuous, “all round the base of the tower the masonry is as broadly and completely laid as if the tower had been first built for a square donjon, and openings had been made" for the four arches where they were subsequently pierced.

4. The green sandstone used in the foundation is exactly similar to the green sandstone used as bonds, with the red tiles, in the Pharos, which is universally admitted to be a Roman work.

5. The materials used in the building are: (a) Tufa, "in the older parts of the work". (b) Caen stone. (c) Kentish rag. (d) Flints. (e) Green sandstone. (f) Oolite, in the lofty south doorway; the doorway at west end of the north transept; north-east corner of chancel, and "nearly through all the foundations". (g) Red tile-brick, "in great profusion ".

It is necessary to draw particular attention to the use of the coarse oolite in the building because it is not known as a building material in any adjacent part of Kent, and was seldom used by any early builders in the district. It is freely used in all parts of the church, and in large blocks, it is skilfully worked, and the "good mason-craft with which the joints were fitted" is unlikė