A HISTORY OF NORFOLK 



practice of burying weapons and ornaments with their dead. The 

 people of Sussex were the last of the Anglo-Saxons on the mainland to 

 to be converted, and from 680 onwards it is fair to assume that the rites 

 of paganism were gradually abolished by Christian teaching, so that the 

 limit of date for pagan burials in Norfolk, at least among the Anglian 

 population, is fixed on both grounds at about a.d. 700. Whether the 

 date of these burials can be limited in the other direction depends on 

 the accumulation of internal evidence and virtually on that alone, for 

 written history is here unavailable, and tradition may be altogether mis- 

 leading. Nor can much be gathered from the physical conditions which 

 the early settlers would meet with in this part of Britain. In the pre- 

 ceding chapter the emptiness of Norfolk as regards the Roman occupa- 

 tion has been commented upon, and the sparsity of population attributed 

 to its vast tracts of sandy heath and low-lying swamp. After the 

 Roman withdrawal it is fair to assume that the maritime police 

 became inadequate, and the coast of Norfolk, at any rate east of 

 Brancaster, would thus be open to attack from the sea. There seem 

 to have been few Romanized inhabitants on or near the sea-coast to 

 check the immigration, and there is some warrant for the early occupa- 

 tion of East Anglia as implied in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. On the other 

 hand the two main entrances were doubtless guarded for a certain period 

 after 410, and the desolate condition of the intervening region at the 

 time would hardly invite a desperate effort on the part of the barbarians. 

 Once however the gates of Norfolk were in Anglian hands a rapid 

 increase in wealth and population might be looked for, as the Icknield 

 and the Peddar's Way must for ages have been recognized trade routes, 

 and these had not been wholly superseded by the Roman roads in 

 Norfolk. 



To start from the north-west angle of the county, where one of the 

 two main approaches from the sea had been commanded during the 

 Roman period by the fort at Brancaster, evidences of cremation have 

 been found at Sedgeford, a village about three miles south-east of 

 Hunstanton. An urn with bosses round the body so characteristic of 

 this period, is now in Norwich Castle Museum, and according to the 

 catalogue prepared by Mr. Harrod in 1853 contained a quantity of 

 burnt bones. A labourer engaged in carting from a pit found on the 

 fall of some gravel from the side a line of urns standing mouth upwards 

 and without covers, but the rest were probably destroyed. Near the 

 park at Wormegay were found ' two most perfect Anglo-Saxon urns ' ; * 

 and further south an unornamented urn, now in the British Museum, 

 came to light some years ago at Wereham in a gravel-pit, 14 feet from 

 the surface. 



In the spring of 1857 some workmen were raising a new bank 

 along the boundary line dividing the parishes of Castle Acre and West 

 Acre when they came upon several dark grey urns, varying in size and 

 pattern, and filled with calcined bones. Many of these urns were de- 



1 Eastern Counties Collectanea, 1872-73, p. 185. 

 328 



