A HISTORY OF BEDFORDSHIRE vided with illustrations, so that there is now little opportunity of testing their accuracy or identifying relics said to be of Anglo-Saxon date. There is little internal evidence of such origin in several sharply pointed tines of deer-horn found at Bedford Castle about 1854, with a number of arrowheads, beads of vitrified paste and of agate or carnelian. 1 The tines measured about 3! inches in length and were thought to have served as the heads of missile weapons ; but though the beads may well have been of the glass and amber usually found in Anglo-Saxon graves, such primitive lance heads as those described suggest a much earlier period. In 1881 a number of Roman and Saxon remains including pottery of both periods are said to have been discovered in Castle Lane, on what was thought to be the site of a Roman villa, 2 but nothing that can be held to confirm the testimony of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle with regard to Bedford is recorded till 1896, when workmen employed in making a road through a field (now Russell Park), presented to the town by the Duke of Bedford, found three skeletons placed in a line east and west, the feet being towards the east. Close to two of the skulls lay spear- heads of a common type, and a few yards south of the bodies was found an iron sword 3 ; this was of the ordinary two-edged kind just a yard in length including the tang, with a uniform breadth of 2 inches. The site is near Newnham, three quarters of a mile east of the county town on the north bank of the Ouse, and 50 yards from the river. The skeletons were 3! feet below the surface in a bed of river alluvium, but though the sur- rounding soil was carefully sifted, no further relics of the period were discovered. 4 This would not be surprising if, as is alleged, it was on this site that the Danes were repulsed from Bedford in the days of Edward the Elder, and these were the remains of burghers slain in action. The burial of weapons and ornaments with the dead would by that time be unusual, as the Church discouraged the practice. At the end of 1887 excavations for a malting in Home Lane dis- closed two bone combs, one of which at least belongs to a Danish type, perhaps three or four centuries later than the battle of 571. They were Bone Comb, Bedford (4 size) IZ Double Bone Comb, Bedford. (J size) 1 Journ. of Arch. Inst. xi. 295. 8 Building News, J October, 188 1. 3 These are now in the Council Chamber at the old Harpur Schools, Bedford. 4 Report of Mr. J. Gwyn Elger, local secretary, in Proc. Soc. Antiq. xvi. 114. 180
