A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 



is somewhat uncertain, and the most likely region is that near the mouths 

 of the Rhine. They were no doubt carried by the Northmen, to whom 

 Nottingham more than once fell a prey. The Danes, for instance, seized 

 the passage of the Trent and wintered there in 868. 



Such is the somewhat meagre story of portable objects belonging 

 for the most part to the pagan Anglo-Saxon period, which have been 

 recovered from the soil of Nottinghamshire from time to time. Christian 

 monuments of pre-Norman date, such as the stone carvings still to be 

 seen in the county, are reserved for treatment elsewhere ; but as marking 

 the transition to Norman England one discovery of interest may be 

 mentioned in conclusion. Four ring-brooches of bronze, of plain and 

 solid workmanship, were included in the exhibition organized by the 

 Thoroton Society in 1899 l and are still in existence. All of the same 

 pattern (see fig.), they can be at once recognized as belonging to a type 



hitherto poorly represented, and difficult to 

 date with precision. The available evidence 

 is somewhat contradictory and may be summed 

 up as follows : Two are known from Berk- 

 shire 8 : one was found, apparently with a 

 secondary interment, in a grave-mound on the 

 Lambourn Downs, and is now in the British 

 Museum ; while the other, now in Reading 

 Museum, comes from a grave lined with 

 Roman tiles in a meadow adjoining King's 

 Road, Reading. Two in the Royal Museum 

 at Canterbury were found in the neighbour- 

 hood, but further details are wanting ; while 

 two other discoveries might be approximately 



dated, though the evidence points to the Norman period. A pair was found 

 buried in the flower garden at Audley End, Essex, and may have 

 belonged to a member of the Benedictine community on that site 

 (Walden Abbey), which dates from 1138. A similar conclusion may 

 be drawn from the occurrence of the same type on the site of Hyde 

 Abbey (founded 1 109)," where several of these brooches were found with 

 chalices, patens and ciboria in graves that retained traces of ecclesi- 

 astical vestments. Nothing definite as to date can be gathered from the 

 account of the Nottingham discovery, which took place in February, 1 841, 

 during excavations for the poor-house in York Street.* Human bones 

 were uncovered in great numbers, along with fragments of stonework, 

 part of a pavement of glazed tiles, several ' brass rings ' (the bronze 

 brooches in question), a large stone coffin, and other antiquities. The 

 site is supposed to have been that of the ancient church of St. Michael, 

 which was destroyed by the inhabitants in 1328 during a tumult with 



1 Transactions of Thoroton Society, iii, 50. 



1 V. C. H. Berks, i, pp. 238, 240, (with fig.). 



* John Carter, Specimens of Ancient Sculpture and Painting, ii, 19 (figs.). 



4 Nottingham Date Book, 10 Feb. 1841 ; Bailey, Annals of Notts, iv, 419 ; i, 210. 



204 



BRONZE RING-BROOCH FROM 

 NOTTINGHAM. () 



