Page:VCH Kent 1.djvu/449

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ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS ' cross-bow ' and the long brooches of Scandinavia ; also a good silver- gilt brooch set with garnets of keystone form ; another with cruciform centre and border of garnet cell-work ; a more primitive example of the same work (as at Bifrons) ; a garnet pendant mounted in gold, and a bracteate of that metal in pendant form. A late Roman coin ^ and three silver sceattas (probably after 600) were found, the only other coin being a Gaulish copy of the gold solidus of Justinian (527-565), which gives an approximate date for the cemetery. Glass beads and various objects of bronze, such as girdle-tabs and rivets, buckles and tweezers, call for no special remark ; but a radiated brooch of five points, and two other forms,' point to the fifth century rather than the sixth. Minor discoveries of Anglo-Saxon antiquities have been made at Richborough and Sandwich (see list), but there were probably few inducements to settle in the low ground that now forms the coast between Thanet and Deal. On the waterworks hill about one mile south-west of Deal and just behind Walmer, several Anglo-Saxon graves have been noticed in section at the top of a chalkpit, and a few charac- teristic relics recovered. Several trenches, some running parallel in the same locality, are evidently of much earlier date, and may have been dug for defensive purposes, though the ramparts no longer exist. The finds have not been fully recorded, but it may be mentioned that beads and a circular jewelled brooch were found with a woman's skeleton that lay with the head north-east.' About I mile south of this site a discovery was made about 1852 at Ringwould, on the estate of Rev. John Monins, who presented the relics to the nation. They consisted of two iron spear-heads and a ferrule 6 inches long, a knife, a buckle* and buckle-plate set with false gems ; and were found with the remains of two skeletons on the road to Deal, 6 miles from Dover.' At St. Margaret's, about 3 miles to the south, Douglas in 1782 opened about fourteen grave-mounds in a group of thirty on the cliff, but found no relics except an iron knife." They extended over nearly i| acres and had been noticed by Stukeley' in 1772 : a certain number were opened in 1775, and yielded upwards of twenty glass beads, and a socketed arrow-head, presumably of iron, but suggesting a prototype of the Bronze period. Indeed, one large barrow contained the burnt bones of a young subject and must be referred to the earlier period, this being the primary interment. The skeletons in the other graves were generally east-and-west, and as Douglas suggested, probably belonged to the Christian period, but whether that period began during the Roman occupation or only in the seventh century remains at present uncertain. A rude saucer-brooch of a type poorly represented in Kent, but 1 Numismatic Chronicle, viii. (1845-6), Proc. p. 2 ; wt. 3 grains. = Coll. Ant. iii. pi. vi. fig. l-=zHorae Ferales, pi. xxviii. fig. 4 (coloured). 3 Information from Messrs. S. Manser and H. Dunn, of Deal.

  • Pag. Sa.v. pi. xxix. fig. I. 5 Arch. Journ. ix. 304 (figs.).

• Nen. Brit. p. 119; view, pi. xxv. fig. I. ' Itinerarium Curiosum (1776), p. 127. 363