Page:VCH Kent 1.djvu/441

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ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS was a gold stud set with garnets and provided at the back with a loop which passed through a piece of bone or ivory. This stud resembled that figured from the county, and the discovery renders it probable that the peculiar pyramidal jewels (pi. i. fig. 7) sometimes found in this country and abroad were also sword-knots. A fine buckle, with garnet cell-work at the base of its tongue and its triangular plate of gold ornamented with interlacing, was found near the stud already mentioned, and near the sword point was a lobed cup of blue glass. Finds at Stodmarsh, three miles from Wingham, are of special interest, and are now in the national collection, A grave-mound over- looking the Stour and facing Stodmarsh Court was removed about 1847 and human remains were found, evidently of a man and woman. A bronze bowl and weapons were lost, but the following series was recovered^ : — A square-headed brooch (like pi. ii. fig. 2), a silver brooch with oblong head ornamented with garnet and filigree, a fine buckle with triangular gold plate and three bosses, a 'button' brooch with garnet centre (as pi. i. fig. 16), a spoon with five holes in bowl and garnet on the stem, a filigree stud with green paste, bronze buckles and a pair of shoe- shaped rivets. The spoon may be compared with those from Chatham, Bifrons and Sarre. In the Pagan period, some fourteen centuries ago, the low-lying ground drained by the Stour and its tributaries can have been little more than a swamp ; but one important site stands well within that area, on the road between Canterbury and Ramsgate, this route having evidently been in use at the date in question. The village and neighbourhood of Sarre have proved most prolific in antiquities of the early Anglo-Saxon period, and valuable jewellery has been recovered from time to time. One of the richest finds is now in the national collection and has been well published.' The discovery took place in i860, 6 feet below the surface of chalk land, where a grave had been cut, the skeleton lying with the head to the north-west. A fine jewelled brooch of circular form, 2| inches across, lay on the left breast, and closely resembles two found at Abingdon, Berks (now in the British and Ashmolean Museums) : it has one large central boss of pearl surrounded by four smaller bosses, all surrounded by garnet cell-work, on a gold filigree ground, A bronze bowl of the usual pattern with openwork foot, but of unusual dimensions, contained bones, but these were doubtless of animals and do not point to cremation. The necklace consisted of coloured glass beads with a central pendant of mosaic glass (pi. i. fig. 5), and four looped gold coins of the emperors Mauricius Tiberius (d. 602) and Heraclius (d. 641), with one of Chlotaire II., King of the Franks (d. 628). These were all barbarous imitations of the solidus, but serve to date the burial between 613 and about 650 a.d. Besides a few minor objects there was an iron object in the grave which was described 1 Arch, xxxvi. pi. xvi. pp. 179-81 ; Horae Ferales, pi. xxviii. figs. 7, 8 (coloured). ' Arch. Cant. iii. plates ii. iii. iv. ; Gent. Mag. Nov. i860, vol. 155, p. 533 ; Numismatic Chronicle, new ser. vol. i. (1861) p. 58, pi. iii. 357