vn a Barn in Kent, &c. 113

lord when that iurvey was made ; but there is not any tiling im- probable in the fuppofition that -a parcel of the lands therein de- fcribed as being in the crown might be very foon after granted to one of them ; and it is indifputable that lands were long enjoyed by them under the denomination of the Manor of Prefton and Al- lington. With refpect to the royal manor of Aylesford, a tenure by antient demefne that was purchafed in the fecond year of king James the Ift, by the fir Thomas Colepeper, of whofe names the letters in the infcriptions are the initials. But be the mrmife w r ell founded or groundlefs, that the infcription is commemorative of a family epoch, the figures themfelves will not caft a ray of light on the introduction of Arabic numerals, as the fculptor would clearly give a preference to figures that were moft convenient, and moil in ufe at the time he was employed ; nor can there be any reafon- able doubt of the buildings not being erected before the clofe of the fixteenth century. Particularities in the materials of buildings, and in their ftyle of ftructure, might be found to operate as forcibly againft other dates imagined to be of very high antiquity, had the edifices on which they are exhibited been carefully furveyed. Of this opinion was bifhop Lyttelton, who, in a Differtation on the Antiquity of Brick Buildings, thus exprefled his fentiments. " Our very w-orthy and learned brother, D r . Ward, in his ingenious remarks on Arabian Numerals, imprefled in Relievo on a brick building at Shalford in Bucks, has fatisfactorily proved that the date could not be 1182, as was fuppofed, but rather 1383. He founds his objection upon the Arabian or Indian numerals being of later introduction into this part of Europe than the twelfth century. But had he known that the oldeft brick building here (pofterior to the Roman govern- ment) reached not higher than the clofe of the fourteenth century, this alone would have been a very ftrong argument againft the fup- VOL. XIII. Q " pofed