A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



A little distance up the river, at Bardwell, there was evidently an early 

 cemetery, as Anglo-Saxon weapons, including the boss of a shield, were found 

 there about 1846, though no further details are available." Ixworth, that 

 comes next in order, has yielded a large number of antiquities belonging to 

 various periods, but the best of the series date from the early days of the 

 English conquest. A rarity in England is a primitive long brooch, repre- 

 senting the evolution of the cruciform type in the 5th century. It was 

 exhibited to the Bury and West Suffolk Archaeological Institute in 1859,*'- 

 and its rarity is attested by the fact that only one other (probably from the 

 Eastern counties) is known in this country.''^' It has a comparatively high 

 bow, and the square plate above it is still very unobtrusive, and can hardly 

 have masked the spiral spring underneath, which originally had knobs at the 

 end like that attached to the top of the plate. It is the parent of the long or 

 cruciform brooches so often found in the Anglian districts of England and in 

 Scandinavia. 



A fine pair, representing a later stage in the development of this type, 



was found on the shoulders of a skeleton in a meadow near the Cross House 



at Ixworth in 1868, and closely resemble another pair found in the county 



(pi. v, fig. i). They are peculiar in having circular grooves filled with red 



enamel (now much discoloured) in the centre of the panels above and below the 



bow.** Brooches of this kind, at least till the last stages of their evolution, 



were not decorated by any additions to the bronze, the varied mouldings being 



held sufficient for the purpose, and it is all the more surprising to find enamel 



added at a date when the side-knobs of the head were still separate from the 



head-plate, and so particularly liable to be lost when the wire-spring perished. 



These specimens cannot well be later than the middle of the 6th century, and 



seem to point to a lingering use of the red enamel so 



characteristic of the early British period. A bronze 



brooch from Ixworth (fig. 6) is difficult to date precisely, 



but may belong to the later Anglo-Saxon period, when 



round brooches were in fashion. The trigram is rather 



suggestive of late Celtic work, and should be compared 



with a specimen from London in the British Museum, 



likewise assigned to the pre-Norman period. 



Yjc. 6 Two remarkable jewels" from Ixworth have been 



Bronze Brooch, published morc than oncc, and were found about i860 by 



Ixworth (i) labourers in what appeared to be a grave, together with 



iron clamps and staples that may have belonged to a coffin. 



The first is a pendent cross of gold i J in. square, of the same type as one from 



Wilton, near Methwold, Norfolk, and had cell-work of garnets and turquoise 



(probably blue glass) covering the front in a step pattern, the back being a 



plain gold plate repaired by means of a patch, and having V-shaped ridges 



below the barrel-loop. 



The second jewel from this remarkable grave was a circular brooch, or 

 rather the front of a brooch that had lost its bronze base and pin, perhaps 



" Warren collection ; drawings exhibited, Journ. Brit. /irch. Assoc, ii, 345. 

 " Proc. iii, 40Z, fig. I on plate. *^ Arch. Joum. Ixv, 67. 



" Joum. Brit. Arch. Assoc, xxvii, pi. 12, fig. 2 ; the 'green enamel' mentioned is explained by the con- 

 tact of the bronze, and possibly by the oxidation of the copper in the enamel itself. 

 " Bui^ and W. Suff. Proc. iii, 296, figs. I, 2 ; Coll. Antiq. iv, 162, pi. xxxviii. 



