ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS 



A suggestion was indeed made that the handle belonged to a mirror, but 

 the find as a whole corresponds so closely with the relics from Des- 

 borough, Northants, 1 now preserved in the British Museum, that the 

 question may be regarded as settled. A flat handle is characteristic of 

 the skillets used by the Romans and apparently the Romanized Britons 

 for sacrificial purposes, 2 and the present example was 6 inches long and 

 an inch wide, terminating in a disc i inches in diameter, with a 

 raised knob in the centre. From a mere fragment of the rim the 

 diameter of the bowl was calculated to be about 6 inches, but the 

 Desborough specimen, which had a handle of the same length, was 10 

 inches across. The vessel would by analogy have had a depth of 3 

 inches, and in shape was intermediate between a modern saucepan and 

 frying-pan, though the bottom was slightly rounded. 



In the same deposit was a bead of amethyst an inch and a quarter 

 long, which was said to be of lilac-coloured transparent pebble ; and 

 a black stone, just over an inch in diameter, set in a looped circlet of 

 gold, as was also an oval garnet, which measured rather more than half 

 an inch in length. Other objects of the precious metal were a barrel- 

 shaped bead of wire, five-eighths of an inch long and similar in shape to 

 two smaller beads of silver, and two ornaments of conical form about a 

 third of an inch in diameter, with a loop attached. Gold wire beads and 

 garnet pendants set in the same metal were also found with the skillet 

 at Desborough, only about eighteen miles from Clifton ; and the parallel 

 is too close to be entirely accidental. 



An important discovery, which also finds a parallel in the adjoining 

 county, was made in 1824 on the line 

 of the Watling Street, about a mile 

 from Cestersover, between Bensford 

 (Bransford or Beresford) Bridge and 

 the turnpike road leading from Rugby 

 to Lutterworth. The road was under 

 repair, and the labourers excavated a 

 number of human skeletons which lay 

 buried in the centre and on both sides 

 of the road, at a distance of 1 8 inches 

 or 2 feet below the surface. With 

 them were found weapons, shield- 

 bosses, and spearheads varying from 6 

 to 15 inches in length and retaining 

 traces of the wooden shaft in the 

 socket ; knives and iron buckles, 

 brooches of various shapes, clasps, 

 rings, tweezers and feminine orna- 

 ments. The majority were of bronze, some few of silver, and there 



CINERARY URN, CESTERSOVER 

 (CHURCHOVER). 



1 Victoria History of Northants, i. 238. 



* A list and details of such vessels are given by Mr. Romilly Allen in Arckttok&a Cambrensil, 



ser. 6, i. 35. 



253 



