A HISTORY OF WARWICKSHIRE 



tained three weapons : a spearhead, a sword 21 inches long, with remains 

 of a wooden handle, and ' a small weapon with an iron handle.' This 

 last may possibly have been the boss of a shield, and the ' pieces of 

 broken armour ' l mentioned may have been other parts of the shield, 

 together with the customary knife. The second find occurred in 1858, 

 and is of a still more indefinite character. In a stone pit at Armscot 

 Field were found fragments of pottery in close proximity to horns of 

 the red deer. The ware was coarse and imperfectly fired, and had 

 neither been ornamented nor lathe-turned. It was however pronounced 

 ' post-Roman, with more of the characteristics of Anglo-Saxon manu- 

 facture.' 2 



To turn now to more satisfactory contributions to the history of 

 the district in pagan times. By far the most important discovery of 

 Anglo-Saxon remains in the county occurred at Longbridge during the 

 last days of 1875, and was fully described by Mr. Tom Burgess of 

 Leamington. 3 On the north bank of the Avon, about a mile due west 

 of Warwick at an angle of the Castle park, a cemetery was accidentally 

 revealed, and yielded relics that help to fill the gap left in the written 

 history of the time. They were presented to the nation by Mr. John 

 Stanton, and comparison of types assists in determining the affinities and 

 era of the people buried here and elsewhere in the Avon valley. The 

 skeletons were discovered about 2\ feet below the level green turf, and 

 not more than a foot in the coarse gravel of a slightly sloping bank that 

 had evidently been thrown up by the river when its course was wider 

 than at present. That the burials belonged to the early Anglo-Saxon 

 period there could be no doubt, for here were the familiar shield-bosses 

 of iron that protected the handle of the fighting man's ' war-board.' 

 Here too were the iron spearheads and knives that commonly occur in 

 male interments, and a number of brooches and ornaments that are more 

 characteristic of the other sex. It was not however thought to have 

 been a place of regular interment, and may have been on or near the site 

 of a battle ; for though some of the bodies lay with the head eastward, 

 others had evidently been interred in haste, with no regard to regularity. 

 Some in fact were found immediately overlying others, and their hap- 

 hazard disposal has been taken to show that these last were prisoners 

 or slaves that had been slaughtered over a chieftain's grave. 4 This is 

 little more than a conjecture, though some with indications of riches 

 had evidently been handled with great care. The position of the shields 

 as shown by the iron remnants varied considerably in the graves, and in 

 one case the boss was found above the skull. In this and other features 

 the present cemetery resembles in a remarkable degree a number of 

 interments opened on two occasions at Holdenby, Northants. 6 There 



| Gentleman's Magazine, Nov. 1792, bm. 985. * Journal of Archaoh&cal Institute, xviii. 374. 



Journal of British Arcb<rological Association, xxxii. 106 ; Journal of Arclxtohgical Institute, xxxiii. 

 4 w* J CCtS ' S g ' Ven In p "**&, Society of Antiquaries, ser. 2, vii. 78. 



Ihis may possibly have been the case with two of the burials at Halford Bridge mentioned above. 

 rutona H,,tory of Northant,, i. 246 ; Miss Hartshorne's Memorials of HoUenby, p. 6 ; and 

 Athenaum, Nov. n, 1899. 



260 



