A HISTORY OF SURREY 



tions at Hawkshill, and closely resembles a specimen known to belong to 

 the Merovingian period, from Caranda in the Department of the Aisne, 

 France. 



Several discoveries l too have been made in the neighbourhood of 

 Mitcham that point to occupation in the early Anglo-Saxon period, though 

 the record is in each case lamentably deficient in details that are essential 

 in this branch of archaeological investigation. In September, 1882, human 

 remains were found in a field adjoining Morden Lane, on a bed of 

 yellow sand which was covered by about 3 feet of black earth. The 

 body had been placed in an extended position almost due north and 

 south, although the direction of the head is not stated, and no trace of 

 any metal or other object was found with the bones. About the year 

 1880 excavations were being made in the coal wharf adjoining the rail- 

 way, about 50 yards north of the site just mentioned, when the work- 

 men came upon some human remains and a corroded iron vessel, which, 

 from a further description supplied, may be supposed to have been a 

 shield-boss of the ordinary type. Two years later objects described as 

 buckles, and possibly of Anglo-Saxon date, were found near the surface 

 in a gravel pit hard by belonging to the railway company. 



Though Mitcham is not an unlikely place for a settlement of that 

 early date, it must be confessed that the evidence above cited does not 

 amount to proof. More confidence may however be placed in the 

 brief account of an earlier discovery near Morden Lane. In 1856 there 

 was exhibited to the Surrey Archaeological Society * the iron boss of a 

 Saxon shield which had been found many years before. The land in 

 this locality has been known in the Court Rolls of the Manor for the 

 last four centuries as Dead Man's Close, and the name may be due to a 

 tradition that it was an ancient burial place, or more probably to the 

 discovery of human bones from time to time. 8 



More isolated interments have been disclosed in other parts of the 

 county. In 1896 some glass beads 4 were found with a skeleton laid with 

 the head westward at Wallington, but the grave was almost obliterated 

 and the contents scattered before any notice was taken. A cinerary urn 

 of the Anglo-Saxon period from Walton-on-Thames was exhibited to 

 the Archaeological Institute 6 in 1867, and contained besides calcined 

 bones a small glass bead and portions of a bronze ornament. Very near 

 this site, but outside the county, a mixed cemetery has been found at 

 Shepperton on the north bank of the Thames ; and an urn that lay only 

 4 yards from an unburnt and orientated burial is figured in the Proceedings 

 of the Society of Antiquaries (iv. 118, 191). 



To summarize the foregoing accounts of excavations and discoveries, 

 which are certainly more monotonous than most of their kind, it may 

 be remarked that with very few exceptions the burials were orientated in 



1 Recorded by Mr. Garraway Rice in the Croydon Advertizer, September 23, 1881. 



8 Surrey Architokgical Collections, vol. vi. pt. ii. Report p. xii. 



8 Journal of British Archaok&cal Association, vii. 442. 



4 Now in the possession of Dr. Cressy of Wallington. 5 Journal, xxv. 1 78. 



268 



