284 



HORSE-SHOES AND HORSE-SHOEING. 



was found a horse-shoe, which fell into the hands of the 

 late Mr Faussett. After that gentleman's death, his col- 

 lection of antiquities passed to Mr Mayer, of Liverpool, 

 who presented them to the Free Public Museum of that 

 town. Unfortunately, of the dozen specimens of horse- 

 shoes in that building there appears to be but litde, if 

 any, history to be obtained ; nearly all the specimens be- 

 long to the Rolfe collection, and but one to that named 

 the Faussett, and this, I presume, is that from the 

 grave at Brighton. Mr Mayer appears, from the state- 

 ment given to me by the sub-curator of the museum, to 

 think it might be Roman, but the shoe is not of the usual 

 Roman type. It has apparently eight nail-holes, is 5^ 

 inches long and 4.^ wide, and the breadth of the branch is 

 about ij inch (fig. 105). It may be added, that in the 



Rolfe collection there are 

 two or three specimens of 

 apparently the same age, 

 and several of a later period. 

 But these lose their value 

 through having lost the 

 history of their discovery. 



Two remarkably curious 

 specimens of a similar kind 

 to that from Fleet Ditch 

 were discovered in 1854, at 

 Horred Hill, parish of Gillingham, Kent, deeply imbedded 

 in brick clay. In appearance they look even more primi- 

 tive than that example, and one (fig. 106) would appear to 

 have been made during the transition from the Roman to 



fig. 105 



