Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 5).djvu/177

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the descriptions and particulars printed. Mr. Wallis Cash has been untiring in his efforts to collect all the information possible with regard to Wiltshire, Somersetshire, Dorsetshire, and Hampshire, and has been kind enough to take photographs; Mr. J. G. Mann has personally visited the Oxfordshire and Berkshire churches and photographed the armour; Colonel Mitchell has been equally kind in the case of Sussex. The assistance of Mr. H. C. Archer, Mr. Fenton, J.P., Mr. H. Plowman, F.S.A., and Colonel Probert, O.B.E., F.S.A., has been of the greatest help. Mr. S. J. Whawell has given me his valuable opinion as to the probable dates of those helmets of which I had photographs. I hope that the notes which I have now collected may serve as a preliminary survey which others may hereafter add to, correct, and amplify. The late Sir Guy Laking described a considerable number of church helmets in the previous four volumes of this work, and to these descriptions I have referred; but I have felt that his "History of European Armour and Arms" ought to include as complete an account as possible of these national treasures preserved in our churches, in view of the fact that a large proportion of the helmets are genuine pieces, many of them being fine examples and almost certainly the work of English armourers.