Page:VCH Kent 1.djvu/459

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ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS are also a number of white bronze buckles of the heavy Gaulish pattern, while the jewelled gold-plated buckles (pi. ii. fig. 7) and hair-pins with heads in the form of birds are of rarer occurrence. The glass in the Gibbs collection is particularly fine, and two typical pieces are illustrated (see fig. 21, and No. 11, plate ii.), the colours being dark blue, pale green, and olive ; and two crystal spheres, the larger retaining its metal mount and ring, belong to a type well known in Kent but as yet unexplained. A richly furnished grave was discovered in April 1894, near Teynham (see list). No parti- culars of the excavations are forthcoming, but the jewels tell their own tale. A bronze-gilt brooch with a star centre set with garnets and blue glass in gold and ivory (.?) was nearly 2 inches in diameter. A gold pendant, looped and in perfect condition, had a diameter of 1 inch, and was also set with garnets and blue pastes, enclosed by bands of a braided pattern. A similar pendant, just over | inch in diameter, had a braided cross in the centre with a ball of gold at each point, but the field left plain. A ring of porphyritic marble of the same size and threaded with a silver wire may have been worn as an earring, a similar ring being found in fragments.' Within a small area known as Huggen's Fields, north-west of Sittingbourne church, re- mains of various periods were found between the years 1825 and 1828. They were described by Rev. Wm. Vallance, and published by Mr. Roach Smith, with additional remarks and a map of the excavations.^ A hoard of bronze implements in an urn and several cineraries of the Bronze period showed that the place had been occupied centuries before the Anglo-Saxons buried their dead here with the jewels and weapons they had worn in their lifetime. Though the ground had not been ploughed within the memory of man, there were no signs of grave-mounds, and the discovery was made during excavations of brick-earth. Several articles of value were lost to science, but among those collected were some of peculiar interest, even in the absence of details as to the graves containing them. A circular brooch, presented to the Dover Museum,' is a splendid example of the Kentish type, the central design being a double star with four studs Olive-green Glass Faversham (i). » Ptoc. Soc. Antiq. rv. 184. » Coll. Ant. i. 97, repeated in Canterbury vol. of Brit. Arch. Assoc. (1S44), p. 336; PajTie, Coll. Cant. 103. ' Coloured illustration in the Archaeological Album, pi. ii. and in Akerman's Pagan Saxondom, pi. xxix. fig. 5 ; fig. 4 of the latter plate represents a bronze buckle from Sittingbourne, now in Dover Museum. 373