A HISTORY OF LEICESTERSHIRE 



known as a girdle-hanger, but of uncertain use (unless to work a primitive 

 bolt), completes the list of discoveries at Saxby, most of which are in the 

 possession of the Midland Railway Company at Derby. Access to the 

 collection and permission to photograph specimens for reproduction were 

 readily accorded by the engineer-in-chief, Mr. W. B. Worthington. 



Between Saxby and the county town lies the district that seems to have 

 most attracted the earliest English inhabitants of the county, and there are traces 

 at Twyford of British influence. Two trefoil escutcheons (plate I, fig. 2) of 

 bronze with hooks at the top are in the museum at Leicester, with the base of 

 a bronze bowl, perforated apparently for the rivet that attached a disc to the 

 outside or inside of the vessel. The mounts are not a pair and are of unusual 

 form, but their peculiar hooks indicate their use, for attaching chains to the 

 rim which had a hollow moulding. Such attachments are generally circular 

 in this country and enamelled with red and other sunk enamels in the peculiar 

 eccentric patterns of Late Celtic art, and the recent find of a very early bowl 

 so fitted confirms their British origin. The exact use of such elaborate 

 bowls is still a mystery, but that the majority belong to the post-Roman 

 period is evident, and two moulded annular brooches and part of a bucket of 

 regular Anglo-Saxon manufacture come from the same site, though there is 

 no record of the discovery. The two civilizations are again represented by 

 objects found between Twyford and Burrough Hill and now at Leicester ; 

 the bronze mounts of a bucket, of somewhat fragile make, are preserved along 

 with a necklace of amber beads and two silver bars between 5 in. and 6 in. 

 long, together forming a clasp, which may be of Anglo-Saxon origin ; some- 

 what similar fastenings are seen on long chains found in Prankish graves of 

 the eighth century. 374 Anglian settlement on this site is further indicated by 

 a pair of silver-wire loops with the ends spirally coiled, like specimens from 

 Beeby in this county and from Kenninghall, Norfolk. 88 They were doubtless 

 attached to the dress and used for fastening it, like the modern hook-and-eye. 

 Similar fastenings, but of bronze, were in use at least a thousand years earlier, 

 as several have been found on Late Bronze Age sites in Switzerland and 

 France. 



There is a bare record S9 of another discovery in the same neighbour- 

 hood. In 1852 or earlier a skeleton was found in digging for gravel near 

 Lowesby Hall, the residence of Sir Frederick Fowke. With it was a sword 

 of ordinary type, a spear-head of unusual length, and an iron arrow-head. This 

 last is of rare occurrence in this country, but if properly described may be 

 compared with specimens from the Isle of Wight, 40 now in the armoury of 

 the Tower of London. The bow was more frequently used by the Franks 

 and Alemanni of Bavaria. Perhaps the only record of a find near Hungerton 

 is to be found on the Ordnance map. 40 * The site is just north of the road 

 from Keyham (which is | mile to the west), at the south-east corner of 

 Foxholes Spinney. A spear-head and clasp were found, and probably 

 belonged to an interment, but details are wanting. 



An iron spear and shield-boss found on the estate of Dr. Burnaby (of 

 Greenwich) at Baggrave, with other fragments of iron and sepulchral relics, 

 apparently from the same barrow, were presented to Rev. James Douglas, 



"* Boulanger, Le mobiller funeraire, pi. 45, fig. i. V.CH. Norfolk, i, 340, fig. I. 



" Proc. Sot. Antiq. (Ser. i), ii, 255. V.C.H. Hants, i, 388. 40 > 25-in. O.S. xxxii, 6. 



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