A HISTORY OF WORCESTERSHIRE 



funeral customs, and it would be unwise to assign all distinctly West 

 Saxon burials in Hwiccia to the period before its conquest by Penda. 

 But on the other hand there are sufficient grounds for classing all burials 

 that display a Mercian or Anglian influence as belonging at the earliest 

 to the second half of the seventh century ; for as communication with 

 Wessex ceased, closer contact with the midlands would lead to the intro- 

 duction of foreign elements which would to some extent be represented 

 in the contents of the graves. 



If Worcestershire were rich enough in relics to make a thorough 

 classification possible, we might expect to find the earliest graves exclu- 

 sively West Saxon, perhaps with traces of the earlier British civiliza- 

 tion ; while a mixture of West Saxon and Anglian ornaments, or the 

 latter occurring alone, would betoken a burial subsequent to the middle 

 of the seventh century. So far as the discoveries go historical evidence 

 is supported by archsological results, but it would be idle to assert that a 

 complete vindication of the records is as yet possible on these lines, for 

 the value of the few excavations already made is much impaired by 

 defective observation and description. 



To pass to an enumeration of the relics recovered from pagan or 

 semi-pagan burials in the county, the first site that claims notice is Upton 

 Snodsbury, which lies about six miles east of the county town. Here 

 was apparently a cemetery, from which some objects were exhibited 

 to the Society of Antiquaries^ in 1866, but a fuller and more accurate 

 account of the find was communicated to the Archaeological Institute ^ 

 in the following year by Mr. Pouting of Worcester. To borrow from 

 his paper, it appears that the local field club had rejected two crystal 

 ' spindle-whorls ' (figs. 4, 5) as modern before any archasological exam- 

 ination of the site had been undertaken, and many interesting relics 

 were no doubt lost in the interval. In digging gravel labourers had 

 come upon iron spearheads and numerous amber beads (fig. 3), many 

 of which were subsequently recovered from cottagers in the vicinity. 

 A broad, two-edged iron sword, 3 feet long and evidently of the usual 

 pattern, was discovered, as well as ' three bronze brooches of cruciform 

 type (figs. 6, 7, 8) and a pair of scyphate or saucer form (fig. 9) 

 ornamented with concentric circles.' A trench about 30 feet in length, 

 6 feet deep and 3 to 4 feet wide was noticed and yielded many objects 

 which were thrown aside as of no value and irrecoverably lost. The 

 brooches and amber necklaces just mentioned were however found, not 

 in the trench, but lying apart at a short distance, and the site was on a 

 bank with a warm south-western aspect and a brook flowing below. All 

 the objects figured are preserved in the Victoria Institute at Worcester, 

 and have been specially drawn for the present chapter by kind per- 

 mission of the committee. 



In the critical remarks that follow the account, the Anglo-Saxon 

 character of these remains is regarded as obvious. The spindle-whorls 



1 Proceedings, new series, iii. 342 ; Llewellynn Jewitt's Relifuary, April, 1873, xiii. 206. 

 * Journal, xxiv. 351. 



288 



