A HISTORY OF KENT 



and other female appurtenances. The only piece of jewellery was a 

 blue glass pendant set in silver. 



The next site to be noticed lies immediately west of the Roman 

 road between Canterbury and Dover, but still in the same neighbour- 

 hood as the preceding. Mr. Thos. Wright described the exploration 

 during 1844 of a number of barrows in Bourne Park (Bishopsbourne).' 

 The operations were conducted in the presence of Lord Albert Conyng- 

 ham, in whose park the barrows were situated ; Sir Henry Dryden, 

 Mr. Roach Smith, and the narrator, so that there is every reason to 

 suppose that the greatest care was taken in the excavation. A large 

 barrow proved to have been previously rifled, but unmistakable signs of 

 an Anglo-Saxon interment were noticed, and in the four upper corners 

 of the grave, which measured about 14 feet in length, 6 or 7 

 feet in breadth, and more than 8 feet in depth, there was a small 

 excavation in the chalk filled with the skulls and bones of mice, mingled 

 with remains of seed. The same deposits appeared in several barrows 

 there and on the Breach Downs. 



The second grave-mound was smaller and adjoined the last, scarcely 

 rising above the surface. The body was almost entirely decayed, but 

 seemed to have been placed in a wooden coffin. Near where the right 

 foot must have lain were fragments of small hoops imbedded in wood, 

 evidently the remains of a bucket of the usual type. 



The third burial proved similar to the first, the grave being of 

 almost the same dimensions, but the small holes at the corners, which 

 contained bones of mice, being at the sides instead of at the ends.^ At 

 the foot in the right-hand corner had stood a hooped bucket measuring 

 I foot both in height and in diameter at the base, but tapering upwards. 

 Beside the right leg were found a shield-boss, a horse's bridle-bit, and a 

 buckle, all of iron ; while on the right of the head, placed upright 

 against the wall of the grave, was a thin bronze bowl richly gilt, with 

 two drop-handles of iron, of a not unusual type in Kentish burials. The 

 only other articles found in this grave were two discs nearly i inch in 

 diameter, convex at the top, one being of bone, the other of the red 

 Gaulish ware improperly called ' Samian.' These were probably 

 counters or draughtsmen used in some game, and may be compared 

 with those found at Sarre(p. 359)and elsewhere. No trace of the body 

 could be discerned, and from the absence of the typical sword and 

 knife, it was surmised that this was merely a cenotaph and that the 

 body had been buried elsewhere. 



The barrows opened on this occasion all contained graves cut ap- 

 proximately north and south, the head towards the south, and it was 

 observed that almost all graves at Bourne and on Breach Downs had 

 large flints at the sides and both ends, possibly used to fix a covering 

 over the body before the grave was filled in."* Two other grave-mounds, 



» The barrows examined here by Faussett in 1771 {hiv. Sep. pp. 95-100) were of much earlier 

 date. 



» Plan in Arch. Journ. i. 254, fig. 2. ^ Ibid. i. 3S0. 



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