A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 



In the year i 800 Lord Gage exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries 

 of London ' two swords and a knife, fragments of a stone bracelet and 

 of a buckle which had been recently found with six human skeletons in 

 a field which had been tilled for two centuries, in the parish of Bed- 

 dingham, about five miles from Lewes. The skeletons lay about a foot 

 below the surface, in different directions. Three males and one female 

 lay east-and-west, with the head westward, and the female between the 

 two others ; while one was north-and-south, with the head to the 

 south, and another with the head to the north. A quantity of beads 

 were also collected, which had probably been hung round the woman's 

 neck. 



The position of several graves above the chalk pit near Glynde 

 railway station^ was not marked in any way on the surface ; and it was 

 only by the removal of the top-soil or by the fall of the underlying 

 chalk that they were discernible. Bones were often observed on the 

 lower level, but very seldom could they be traced to any grave above. 

 Except for a small pottery vase ' between 3 and 4 inches high found 

 in 1870, nothing but the usual iron knives were found on the site, and 

 the inference is natural that the community was a poor one. The 

 graves, which were about 1 8 inches from the surface, were how- 

 ever all east-and-west, and the absence of grave-furniture may have 

 been due to religious scruples. The only peculiarities noticed were 

 that in some cases one leg was crossed over the other, and in one 

 instance, in a grave 3 ft. deep, the head lay on the right side facing 

 the south. 



In 1879 Saxon interments were found by the side of the road 

 leading from Glynde to Ringmer, through a spear-head projecting from 

 the face of a cutting.* Eight burials were brought to light, and seven 

 of these lay nearly parallel to each other with the head towards the 

 south-west, the remaining one pointing almost due north. Between 

 two of these graves were found seven urns of the ordinary black pottery 

 imperfectly fired.° They had been placed on the chalk, which had been 

 carefully smoothed to receive them, and were quite plain, containing 

 bones in each case. The articles found with the unburnt burials con- 

 sisted as usual of iron spear-heads and knives, and a shield-boss ; and 

 there were also some rivets, a bronze buckle, and a Roman coin of the 

 kind known as third brass, which was quite illegible through corrosion. 

 Several balls of pyrites were found in the graves, but these do not 

 appear to have been used for making fire. An interesting point was 

 that the position of the large-headed iron nails, used to ornament the 

 edge of the shield, showed that it was circular with a diameter of about 

 2 1 ft., and was made of wood. 



On the north-western slope of the high ground east of Lewes a 



' Archaeologia, xiv. 273. 2 Sussex Arch. Collns. xxiii. p. 82. 



3 Figured full-size, Sussex Arch. Collns. xx. p. 54. " Sussex Arch. Collns. vol. xxxiii. p. 129. 



5 These seem to have been Bronze age cinerary urns, but tliey were possibly Roman. Anglo-Saxon 

 cremations have not been proved south of the Thames. 



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