A HISTORY OF LEICESTERSHIRE 



salient points. The engraved animal patterns were in this country inferior 

 to those of earlier date, while abroad a renaissance was setting in and 

 Teutonic art approaching its zenith. The eye-like points with surrounding 

 lines may be intended to represent a human face, but they are possibly all that 

 survive of the crouching animal that is usually portrayed. Flanking this 

 motive on the three limbs are animal heads with the muzzle curved like 

 an elephant's trunk ; while at the end of the foot are, on either side, the 

 exaggerated nostrils of the so-called horse's head, now transformed into spiral 

 coils. 



Another brooch, from almost the same spot, was found in 1791 and 

 engraved in Nichols's history u of the county. From comparison with the 

 cruciform specimen mentioned above, the length should be about 7*4 in. ; 

 and though no doubt contemporary and derived from the same prototype, it 

 presents some interesting peculiarities. While the other is truly cruciform, 

 this has a square head with projections at the angles that betray its com- 

 paratively late date ; and the essential features of the brooch are again those 

 of the ' long ' brooch of Scandinavia. In the present case the somewhat 

 severe outline and ornamentation of that type have been modified through the 

 influence of the English square-headed brooch which is if anything over- 

 decorated, and the result is without a parallel on the Continent. As the 

 wings below the bow do not appear on the original Scandinavian ' long ' 

 brooch till the sixth century, there can be little hesitation in assigning both 

 these brooches to the seventh century and regarding them as among the latest 

 developments of pagan Teutonic art in England. 



The neighbourhood was further investigated in 1896 by Mr. W. 

 Trueman Tucker, who presented an illustrated report to the Leicester Literary 

 and Philosophical Society. 18 The Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire 

 line to London (now known as the Great Central Railway) was then being 

 constructed at the cross-roads five miles both from Leicester and Lough- 

 borough at the meeting-point of roads from those towns and Charnwood 

 Forest. At this spot many human skeletons were disinterred, but most were 

 removed with the excavated earth to form the embankment. Some of the 

 burials were more closely observed, and probably all were not more than 2 ft. 

 deep, the floor being lined with Charnwood Forest slates and the bodies laid 

 at full length, though the direction is not stated. Several of the graves 

 contained a large quantity of charcoal which was taken to indicate cremation 

 of the body in some cases, but this is not in itself conclusive evidence. Nor 

 is it certain that the pottery fragments also found in these graves belonged to 

 cinerary urns, as there is no mention of burnt bones. At Frilford, Berk- 

 shire, for instance, graves of Romans or Romanized natives frequently 

 contained, in addition to the skeletons, bones and teeth of animals, oyster 

 shells and potsherds, all perhaps the refuse of funeral feasts ; and here as well 

 as at Long Wittenham charcoal was also noticed in many of the interments. 1 * 

 It is probable that most, if not all, the sherds of Roman ware mentioned 

 from the site came from the Roman villa of which the tesselated floor was 



u Vol. iii, pi. 129, fig. 1 6 a, b ; for other finds, see figs. 17-20 (round brooch with central stud, and 

 rings of metal). A similar brooch with stud from Offchurch, Warwickshire, is figured (in section only) Journ. 

 Brit. Arch. Assoc. xxxii, 466, fig. 3 ; and another has recently been found in Rutland. 



13 Paper read 18 May, 1896. 



14 V.C.H. Berks, i, 236 ; Arch, xlii, 426 ; Greenwell, Brit. Barrows, p. 28. 



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