ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS and a report was furnished to the Society of Antiquaries 1 by Mr. Akerman, who incorporated a letter from Rev. J. C. Clutterbuck. The top of a small hill was being prepared for a plantation about 80 yards in diameter, and the soil was disturbed to a depth of 2 or 3 feet, resulting in the discovery of about eighty skeletons, nearly all of which lay east and west, the head presumably to the west. Very few relics were found with the bodies, and only one spearhead is mentioned, though small knives were more numerous. Examination led to the belief that the interments had been made at leisure, and included individuals of all ages and of both sexes, and most of the bodies lay on or just below the surface of the chalk which was here covered with flint gravel. Mr. Akerman compared the Frilford interments with those at Arne Hill, where the majority were evidently devoid of relics, though the labourers doubtless overlooked some objects. ' Christianity seems here to have warred successfully against the practices of paganism, and the heath and hilltop would appear to have been eventually abandoned for the consecrated precincts of the churches, to the extinction of the grosser superstitious practices of our Saxon forefathers, although some of them are denounced by the canons enacted under King Eadgar.' ' Further remains of the Anglo-Saxon period, were discovered near Lockinge Park in 1892," but a complete examination of the site was not undertaken, and only a few relics were recovered from what was assumed to be the skeleton of a woman, buried in a crouching position. The grave was 7 feet deep on the bank of a stream near Betterton, and contained two flat circular brooches of bronze with five small circles incised on the front, a bronze finger-ring and a melon-shaped glass bead of a common Roman pattern. The brooches should be compared with some found at Reading to be noticed presently. In 1 890 a number of Anglo-Saxon antiquities from East Sheffbrd were exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries * by Mr. Walter Money, local secretary for the county, from whom the following account of the discovery is derived. A number of interments were exposed during the construction of the Lambourn Valley railway near the Manor farm, the site being on a high ridge of land on the left bank of the little river Lambourn and a short distance above the main road from Newbury, which runs parallel with the stream. Within the excavated space, some 1 20 yards long, many skeletons were met with of male and female adults and children at a depth of about 2 feet 9 inches from the surface. An iron sword 6 of the usual two-edged type was found beside one of the bodies, and part of the bronze mounting of the scabbard still adhered to the blade. A spearhead also came to light as well as two sword-knives, sometimes called scramasaxes. One of the women had been buried with a bronze gilt brooch (fig. 3) of a square-headed type on the left shoulder, 1 Proc. Soc. Antlq. ser. z, ii. 320. a Ibid. iii. 1 39. 3 Ibid. xiv. 103 ; W. H. Hallam, History of East Lockinge, p. 96. 4 Ibid. xiii. 107 ; Newbury District Field Club, Trans, iv. 196.
- Now in the British Museum, with six vases of different sizes from the same locality.
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