FIG. 4. IRON BUCKLE, WICHNOR, 

 WITH SECTION ) 



A HISTORY OF STAFFORDSHIRE 



visible. Of pottery four well-preserved but very rude hand-made specimens 

 are extant : they are quite devoid of ornament, and of different profile 

 (see fig. 7), the base being more or less rounded as if intended to rest on 



soft earth, and the paste being soft and fairly 

 smooth, of a brownish colour. The tallest measures 

 51 in., and the smallest 3&in., and they were all 

 evidently used as accessory vessels, not as cinerary 

 urns to contain cremated remains. Mr. J. O'Sul- 

 livan states that no bones, weapons, or other anti- 

 quities were found with the two urns that were 

 first discovered. All had been buried in holes or 

 trenches, about 3 ft. or 4 ft. deep and about 8 ft. 

 apart. The other objects enumerated above were 

 found subsequently, but not in association with the pottery. 



At Burrough Fields Farm, 18 south of Walton, bones and other objects 

 not specified were found many years ago, and the name is suggestive of a 

 cemetery, but no other remains are reported from this part of the Trent 

 Valley, and it is highly probable that Needwood and Cannock Chase 

 discouraged further advance in this direction, at least along the main stream : 

 the pioneers may at this point have turned south along the Tame and 

 founded Tamworth. Whether the lower valley of the Dove was occupied 

 by these early settlers is not apparent ; but there is one site to be noticed in 

 the angle made by that river with the Trent, and its proximity to the Roman 

 road which here passes into Derbyshire is significant. During excavations 

 for the original branch of the North Staffordshire Railway, through the 

 rising ground on the south or Burton side of Stretton, several cinerary urns 

 of reddish clay containing bones and ashes are reported to have been found 

 and, as usual, broken by the workmen. At the same time 

 a human skeleton, lying at full length with the feet point- 

 ing south, is said to have been discovered near the village. 

 Some years previously numerous urns containing ashes and 

 bones, deposited about 3ft. below the surface, were exhumed 

 from some gravel workings in a field near the house occu- 

 pied by Mr. Gretton at the Beach. They are described as 

 being made of soft reddish clay, and the mouth of each 

 was closed with a small slab of sandstone. The author 

 refers the pottery to the Britons rather than the Romans, 

 and adds that the skeleton may be later. 19 



Except that the pottery was evidently of poor quality 

 and not wheel-made, one might be inclined to regard the 

 cemetery as Roman, especially as it adjoined the Icknield 

 Street ; but the sepulchral pottery of the Anglo-Saxons 

 was a blackish or brownish grey, the larger (cinerary) urns 

 being generally ornamented on the shoulder with incised 

 lines and stamped patterns. No mention is made of such 

 designs, but it is possible that red earth was still attached to the pottery when 

 examined, and the ornamentation, if any, passed unnoticed. It should be 

 remarked, however, that a few specimens found at Stapenhill were ' so highly 



w Trans. Burton-on-Trent Arch. Soc. iv, pt. ii, 81. " Wm. Molyneux, Burton-on-Trent, zi. 



206 



Fie. 5. BROOCH 



FOUND AT WlCHNOR 



<*) 



