ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS 



of this specimen (6 in.), and its debased ornament prepare us for the final 

 extinction of this type in the 7th century. 



About two miles east of Mildenhall, and north of the high road to Bury, 

 lies Warren Hill, an eminence formed by chalk outliers overlaid by deposits 

 of sand, gravel, and clay. In 1866 one of several barrows on this link, 

 measuring about 70 ft. in diameter, and 9 or 10 ft. in height, was being dug for 

 gravel, and was found to contain a burial of the early Bronze Age, covered 

 with eighteen antlers of the red deer. In the surface of the barrow were also 

 found Saxon burials with the usual furniture, such as shield-bosses of iron, 

 spear-heads, knives, and toilet articles, but no advantage was taken of the 

 opportunity of examining these burials under proper supervision.'* In 188 1, 

 however, an Anglo-Saxon cemetery, distant only a few yards from the site of 

 the barrows, was explored and subsequently described by Mr. Henry Prigg, 

 an account of previous discoveries west of the road-cutting being contributed 

 by Mr. Simeon Fenton." The gravel pits had then been worked for many 

 years, and the workmen had brought Mr. Fenton a number of antiquities 

 before he himself began to watch the site in 1875. In November of that 

 year he excavated two graves, apparently of women, buried near a warrior, 

 whose shield and spear-head had previously been found. Tweezers, ' long ' 

 brooches, and remains of cloth were recovered, and the teeth had been stained 

 by contact with a bronze cruciform brooch 5 J in. long, which had evidently 

 been worn at the shoulder. Next year a somewhat richer grave was found 

 containing a cruciform brooch 6 in. long, part of a circular brooch, and 

 remains of cloth as before, but there were also ten beads of rough amber, one 

 of glass-paste, four silver-wire rings J in. in diameter, and as many silver discs 

 with a star pattern round a central boss and a border of dots punched from 

 the back of the plate, closely resembling specimens from West Stow, Suffolk ; 

 and Market Overton, Rutland. 



In the following year a burial was found that seems to settle the use of 

 the bronze clasps, so frequently found in this part of England. A pair sewn 

 to cloth lay on either side of the body where the arms had been, and no 

 doubt served to fasten the wristbands or bracelets. The grave contained 

 three small brooches and the inevitable knife. Another woman had been 

 buried near, two silver bracelets '* with overlapping ends and a pair of finger- 

 rings being found at her left side. A few yards north of these, and close to 

 the warrior mentioned above, was found the skeleton of a horse, as at Little 

 Wilbraham, Cambridgeshire ; '' and a similar discovery was made on the 

 outskirts of the well-known Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Marston St. Lawrence, 

 Northants,'" though no human burial was there found in close association 

 with it. 



Mr. Prigg's own excavations on Warren Hill added a few points of 

 interest. The first grave was that of an old man, laid with the feet east- 

 south-east, and on his breast were found the remains of a shield, by his left 

 hip a wooden drinking cup turned on the lathe, and (probably) an iron spear- 

 head beside the skull. The shield had the handle still in position below the 



" Bury andW. Suff. Proc. iv, 298, figs. 4-8 on plate. " Ibid, vi, 57-72. 



" Cf. specimens from Long Wittenham, Berks. {Jrch. xxxviii, pi. xix, fig. 6) ; Malton, near Barrington, 

 Cambs. (Brit. Mus.). 



" Neville, Saxon Obsequies, 9, grave 44. 



"' Plan in Arch, xxxiii, pi. xi, p. 330 (Barrow Furlong). 



