Page:VCH Suffolk 1.djvu/417

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ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS of this specimen (6 in.), and its debased ornament prepare us for the final extinction of this type in the 7th century. About two miles east of Mildenhall, and north of the high road to Bury, lies Warren Hill, an eminence formed by chalk outliers overlaid by deposits of sand, gravel, and clay. In 1866 one of several barrows on this link, measuring about 70 ft. in diameter, and 9 or 10 ft. in height, was being dug for gravel, and was found to contain a burial of the early Bronze Age, covered with eighteen antlers of the red deer. In the surface of the barrow were also found Saxon burials with the usual furniture, such as shield-bosses of iron, spear-heads, knives, and toilet articles, but no advantage was taken of the opportunity of examining these burials under proper supervision.'* In 188 1, however, an Anglo-Saxon cemetery, distant only a few yards from the site of the barrows, was explored and subsequently described by Mr. Henry Prigg, an account of previous discoveries west of the road-cutting being contributed by Mr. Simeon Fenton." The gravel pits had then been worked for many years, and the workmen had brought Mr. Fenton a number of antiquities before he himself began to watch the site in 1875. In November of that year he excavated two graves, apparently of women, buried near a warrior, whose shield and spear-head had previously been found. Tweezers, ' long ' brooches, and remains of cloth were recovered, and the teeth had been stained by contact with a bronze cruciform brooch 5 J in. long, which had evidently been worn at the shoulder. Next year a somewhat richer grave was found containing a cruciform brooch 6 in. long, part of a circular brooch, and remains of cloth as before, but there were also ten beads of rough amber, one of glass-paste, four silver-wire rings J in. in diameter, and as many silver discs with a star pattern round a central boss and a border of dots punched from the back of the plate, closely resembling specimens from West Stow, Suffolk ; and Market Overton, Rutland. In the following year a burial was found that seems to settle the use of the bronze clasps, so frequently found in this part of England. A pair sewn to cloth lay on either side of the body where the arms had been, and no doubt served to fasten the wristbands or bracelets. The grave contained three small brooches and the inevitable knife. Another woman had been buried near, two silver bracelets '* with overlapping ends and a pair of finger- rings being found at her left side. A few yards north of these, and close to the warrior mentioned above, was found the skeleton of a horse, as at Little Wilbraham, Cambridgeshire ; and a similar discovery was made on the outskirts of the well-known Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Marston St. Lawrence, Northants,'" though no human burial was there found in close association with it. Mr. Prigg's own excavations on Warren Hill added a few points of interest. The first grave was that of an old man, laid with the feet east- south-east, and on his breast were found the remains of a shield, by his left hip a wooden drinking cup turned on the lathe, and (probably) an iron spear- head beside the skull. The shield had the handle still in position below the " Bury andW. Suff. Proc. iv, 298, figs. 4-8 on plate. " Ibid, vi, 57-72. " Cf. specimens from Long Wittenham, Berks. {Jrch. xxxviii, pi. xix, fig. 6) ; Malton, near Barrington, Cambs. (Brit. Mus.). " Neville, Saxon Obsequies, 9, grave 44. "' Plan in Arch, xxxiii, pi. xi, p. 330 (Barrow Furlong).