ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS who were at one time held in great esteem, or to the foreign workmen at Alired's court mentioned by his biographer Asser. A discovery^ made in 1774 little more than a quarter of a mile eastward throws some light on the Dowgate Hill brooch. During excava- FiG. 14. — Coins of Edward the Confessor and William the Conqueror, St. Mary-at-Hill (i) tions for the foundations of a sugar warehouse near St. Mary-at-Hill Church, east of Love Lane, the workmen came upon an earthen vessel 14 or 15 ft. below the level of the street. It stood upright in the ground, 18 or 20 in. below the brick pavement of an old cellar, and contained a number of silver coins, some of which crumbled to pieces when handled. Forty or fifty were carted away and afterwards recovered, and between 300 and 400 pieces (fig. 14) were examined eventually and found to consist entirely of pennies of Edward the Confessor (1042-66), Harold II (1066), and William the Con- queror (1066-87). More than half the num- ber belonged to Edward, and the find included many halves and quarters intermixed with the whole pennies ; and an examination of the Conqueror's pieces"" shows that the deposit was made about 1075, within a decade of the Conquest. These coins serve to date the gold brooch found with the best of them in a smaller vessel which was inverted within the pottery vase. The last was destroyed, but was of bluish ware ' of close texture,' about J in. thick, shaped like an urn and holding about two quarts ; the other vessel (fig. 15), evidently a crucible, is illustrated with the brooch and three of the coins in the original account, but all have now been probably lost or dispersed. The coins contained in the cru- cible were well preserved and hardly discoloured, but the gold filigree brooch had lost three of the four pearl settings which surrounded the central sapphire. The front view (plate, fig. 7) corresponds closely enough to the Dowgate Hill specimen, though the outline is different ; in both is a central setting within a broad openwork filigree border enriched by four circular pearls, while the hinge and pin at the back (fig. 1 6) are in the same position (not across the middle) and of the same character. Fici 15. — Pottery Crucible, St. Mary AT-HiLL (I) Fig. 16. — Back View of Brooch, St. Mary-at-Hill (i) '"" Described and illustrated in Arch, iv, 356, pi. xxi ; list of coins, 363. "= Hawkins, ^iher Coins of Engl. (1841), Nos. 233-4, 236-7; cf. Numismatic Chron. (4th Sen), iv, (1904), 145, 147, 157. Type 234 is assigned to 1067-70 ; 236 to about 1070-3; and 237 to about 1075-7 ; cf. vol. ii (1902), 213.
