Page:Notes by the Way.djvu/154

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84

��NOTES BY THE WAY.

��The London

County

Council's

Museum.

��Dickens at

Tavistock

House.

��The London County Council is establishing at its central offices a museum of antiquarian relics. The golden sign of " The Half Moon," from the doorway of one of the gabled houses in Holy well Street, has been placed there. An old friend of ' N. & Q.,' Mr. G. L. Gomme, has the matter in hand, so there is a certainty of its being well done.

Tavistock House, Tavistock Square, the home of Charles Dickens for nine years, has just been added to the record of vanishing London.

Marylebone Church.

ST. MARYLEBONE CHURCH.

The celebration of the five-hundredth anniversary of the laying of the foundation stone of the old parish church of St. Maryle- bone took place on Sunday, October 28th, 1900. The church is sometimes known as " The Hogarth Church," from its being depicted in ' The Rake's Progress ' and ' The Idle Apprentice.' Many of the Dukes of Portland are buried in the church ; Byron was baptized there in March, 1788. It will also be remembered that little Paul Dombey was supposed to have been christened there. The churchyard contains the tomb of Charles Wesley.

THE GOLD STONE.

The Gold Mr. W. Hollamby, of Hove, has been the means of the recovery

t | ie : M r. of the Gorsed or Gold Stone, described by Horsfield as one ol the . o am y. j ar g es ^ an( j mos t remarkable of the Druidical stones upon the Brighton Downs. Its length is 13ft., the greatest width 9ft., and depth about 6 ft., and it is said to have weighed about eleven tons. About seventy years ago, owing to the damage done to his crops by curious visitors, the owner of the land on which it stood caused it to be buried. Its whereabouts was discovered only after one hundred trial holes had been sunk. In ' N. & Q.' of the 10th of November, 1866, Mr. C. Purling states that in Erredge's ' History of Brighton ' full particulars are given of the Gold Stone Bottom tragedies. The regiment quartered at Brighton mutinied, and on the 13th of June, 1795, two of the men were shot at Gold Stone Bottom.