ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS 



garnet centre. Special mention must be made of a very large buckle 

 with garnets in a scale-pattern, and along the centre a fish in high 

 relief, the borders containing knot-work filigree. The buckle and 

 corresponding plate are much in the Prankish style, and it is just 

 conceivable that the fish was a Christian symbol in this instance and 

 also on a smaller buckle found at Faversham ; it is frequent on con- 

 tinental remains of this period. 



In the same valley, about half-way to Canterbury, important 

 discoveries were made in the eighteenth century. Dr. Cromwell 

 Mortimer, Secretary of the Royal Society, had in 1730 superintended 

 the excavation of, and reported upon, a number of barrows in this same 

 area, though he calls it Swerdling (Swadling) Down, in the parish of 

 Chartham. His account is published by Douglas,' and in an abridged 

 form by Faussett,^ the latter, as a conscientious and eminently sane 

 explorer, having much fault to find with the doctor's preconceptions 

 and conclusions. A brief summary will be enough for our present 

 purpose, and no time need be spent in proving that these graves 

 were not those of Roman soldiers who fell in Caesar's decisive victory 

 over the Britons in Kent. He describes the site of his discoveries with 

 some precision, the mounds being situated about half a mile south of 

 Chartham church along the top of a hill overlooking the Stour, between 

 the roads from Canterbury to Wye and Chilham. The county asylum 

 has since been erected about i mile east of this burial-ground, which 

 like many others in the country was popularly associated with the 

 Danes (Danes' Banks). The graves had commonly been cut due east 

 and west, the head being as usual at the west end, and a mass of flints 

 generally covering the body, but no notice was taken of any coffins. 

 The bones are said to have been burnt, but Faussett, who as a boy ten 

 years old had been present at these excavations, was able to correct the 

 doctor's mis-statement. One grave, probably that of a woman, con- 

 tained a fine gold and silver brooch (as pi. i. fig. i, but with four points), 

 two glass phials, garnets mounted in gold as pendants, and an ornament 

 of gold wire ^ with a cross in the centre and a border of four coils : all 

 these are illustrated in Douglas' Nenia, pi. v. To the last-named 

 ornament there was attached by a chain a round-headed pin that may 

 have been a ' union pin,' as found on Breach Down. A crystal sphere 

 and what was no doubt a bronze bowl, 6| inches in diameter (though 

 described as a helmet or skull-cap), completed the furniture. Another 

 mound covered a burial in which was an urn of red earth, and also a 

 large black cinerary urn, the latter doubtless of Roman origin. Buckles, 

 toilet articles, earrings, and the heads of a javelin and arrow were also 

 found, but there was nothing remarkable in about twenty barrows, of 

 which the largest was 6 feet high and 30 feet in diameter at the base. 

 Mention must however be made of two shield-bosses, one hemispherical 

 and the other conical, found at the head of a skeleton ; of a gold 



1 Nen. Brit. pp. 99-107 ; plan of this cemetery on pi. xxiv. 

 > Inv. Sep. pp. 162-8. 3 Pag. S,ix. pi. xi. fig. 3. 



I 369 47 



