ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS 



almost invariably found in Anglo-Saxon inhumations, and was used at 

 meals and for general purposes. A socketed cone of iron has the appear- 

 ance of a spear-butt, though the head was not recovered ; and a strip of 

 bronze binding may well have come from the edge of the shield. A 

 piece of iron, that is better drawn in Thoroton's account, 1 was probably 

 the handle of the sword or the shield, and * the thin coat of smooth 

 yellow rust upon it ' would be, in that case, decayed wood, or possibly 

 leather. There need be, therefore, little hesitation in classing this as an 

 unburnt burial of the Anglo-Saxon period, though the mound may con- 

 ceivably have been in existence some centuries previously, and contained 

 Bronze Age interments of which no trace remained. Such was the case 

 at Oldbury, near Atherstone, just within the northern boundary of War- 

 wickshire. Here the barrow, at the time of exploration, was about twenty 

 feet in diameter at the base, rising in the centre to a height of about fifteen 

 feet ; but the Anglo-Saxon interment, marked by an iron spear-head and 

 shield-boss, was found with human bones only 2 ft. from the surface, the 

 usual depth at that period. 2 Many cases in Yorkshire show that the 

 Teutonic invaders frequently availed themselves of grave-mounds that 

 were then at least a thousand years old and formed a conspicuous feature 

 of the landscape. 



The bald statement that the brooch illustrated below (p. 203) was 

 found in a garden at Tuxford in 1865 is of a kind too frequently met 

 with in archaeological inquiry : it whets the curiosity and leaves it 

 unsatisfied on many points that careful excavation or even a superficial 

 examination of the site would have settled. Methods of precision, how- 

 ever, can hardly be expected in such chance discoveries, and it is a 

 matter for congratulation that this interesting relic of antiquity was 

 preserved at all. It recently passed into the hands of Sir John Evans, 

 who exhibited it to the Society of Antiquaries, 8 and kindly allowed its 

 reproduction in these pages. 



Its outline is familiar enough, and evidently further than the Holme 

 Pierrepont example from the prototype. Large square-headed specimens of 

 this type are mostly found in the counties of Leicester and Northampton 

 (five each), but four are also known from Cambridgeshire, and three each 

 from Norfolk, Suffolk, and Yorkshire ; Nottinghamshire and Lincoln- 

 shire have each yielded two, so that the centre of distribution is thus 

 fairly indicated ; but typical specimens occur sporadically further afield, 

 and a very close analogy to the Tuxford example is presented by one from 

 Sarre, on the highroad half-way between Canterbury and Ramsgate. The 

 isolated occurrence of another almost identical with the latter at Herpes, 

 Dept. Charente, near the centre of the west coast of France, does not point 

 to importation from that quarter, but rather the contrary; the prototype was 

 evidently evolved in the north of the Continent, though specimens found in 

 this country may well have been manufactured here on the traditional lines. 



The side view shows a comparatively small bow and the position 

 of the hinge and catch-plate for the pin at the back, but the most 



1 Hist, of Notts, ii, 176. * V. C.H. Warw. i, 267. * Proceedings, vol. xxi. 



199 



