ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS 



and a report was furnished to the Society of Antiquaries 1 by Mr. Akerman, 

 who incorporated a letter from Rev. J. C. Clutterbuck. The top of a 

 small hill was being prepared for a plantation about 80 yards in diameter, 

 and the soil was disturbed to a depth of 2 or 3 feet, resulting in the 

 discovery of about eighty skeletons, nearly all of which lay east and west, 

 the head presumably to the west. Very few relics were found with the 

 bodies, and only one spearhead is mentioned, though small knives were 

 more numerous. Examination led to the belief that the interments had 

 been made at leisure, and included individuals of all ages and of both 

 sexes, and most of the bodies lay on or just below the surface of the chalk 

 which was here covered with flint gravel. 



Mr. Akerman compared the Frilford interments with those at 

 Arne Hill, where the majority were evidently devoid of relics, though 

 the labourers doubtless overlooked some objects. ' Christianity seems 

 here to have warred successfully against the practices of paganism, and 

 the heath and hilltop would appear to have been eventually abandoned 

 for the consecrated precincts of the churches, to the extinction of the 

 grosser superstitious practices of our Saxon forefathers, although some of 

 them are denounced by the canons enacted under King Eadgar.' ' 



Further remains of the Anglo-Saxon period, were discovered near 

 Lockinge Park in 1892," but a complete examination of the site was not 

 undertaken, and only a few relics were recovered from what was assumed 

 to be the skeleton of a woman, buried in a crouching position. The 

 grave was 7 feet deep on the bank of a stream near Betterton, and 

 contained two flat circular brooches of bronze with five small circles 

 incised on the front, a bronze finger-ring and a melon-shaped glass bead 

 of a common Roman pattern. The brooches should be compared with 

 some found at Reading to be noticed presently. 



In 1 890 a number of Anglo-Saxon antiquities from East Sheffbrd 

 were exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries * by Mr. Walter Money, 

 local secretary for the county, from whom the following account of the 

 discovery is derived. A number of interments were exposed during the 

 construction of the Lambourn Valley railway near the Manor farm, the 

 site being on a high ridge of land on the left bank of the little river 

 Lambourn and a short distance above the main road from Newbury, 

 which runs parallel with the stream. Within the excavated space, some 

 1 20 yards long, many skeletons were met with of male and female adults 

 and children at a depth of about 2 feet 9 inches from the surface. An 

 iron sword 6 of the usual two-edged type was found beside one of the 

 bodies, and part of the bronze mounting of the scabbard still adhered to 

 the blade. A spearhead also came to light as well as two sword-knives, 

 sometimes called scramasaxes. One of the women had been buried with 

 a bronze gilt brooch (fig. 3) of a square-headed type on the left shoulder, 



1 Proc. Soc. Antlq. ser. z, ii. 320. 

 a Ibid. iii. 1 39. 



3 Ibid. xiv. 103 ; W. H. Hallam, History of East Lockinge, p. 96. 



4 Ibid. xiii. 107 ; Newbury District Field Club, Trans, iv. 196. 



* Now in the British Museum, with six vases of different sizes from the same locality. 



239 



