A HISTORY OF SURREY In the original account l it was compared with a somewhat more com- mon type belonging for the most part to the prehistoric period and illus- trated in an early volume of the Archaeological Institute. 3 The addition of a thinner strand to the spiral coil of gold seems to have been characteristic of the Viking period, and the Witley ring may be more properly classed with the gold bracelet found at Wendover and now preserved in the British Museum. Gold and silver bracelets of this type are however more commonly found in Norway, some associated with coins which assign them to the ninth and tenth centuries. 8 Also of gold, is a small Merovingian coin found about 1854 in a garden at Brockham, between Reigate and Dorking. It is a triens or tiers de so/ struck at Metz, of the coinage of the French kings of the first race. 4 Its weight just exceeds 19 grains, and another coin of the same type, bearing the name of the same moneyer, Ansoaldas, occurred in the Crondall hoard. The Brockham piece is now preserved in the British Museum, and may be assigned to the period 550-600, during which the Roman influence is still apparent in the coinage. In addition to the above, two important hoards of Anglo-Saxon coins in Surrey have been recorded. The first discovery 6 was made in April, 1817, within the parish of Dorking on Lower Merriden Farm at Winterford Hanger. A wooden box, containing about 700 silver coins and about six ounces of fragments, was struck by the plough, and being massed together by the decomposition of the alloy were easily recovered, though the box crumbled away on exposure to the air. The treasure had been concealed about a foot below the surface in a spot where the earth is of a particularly dark colour and productive of better corn than any other part of the field. A revised list of the coins shows that East Anglia was represented by sixteen of Aethelweard (837 50), three of Eadmund (855-73), an< ^ ^ same number of the Danish Aethelstan (878-90) ; Mercia by one each of Ceolwulf I. (822-3), Beornwulf (824-5), Wiglaf (825-39), and Burgred (853- 74), while there are twenty-three of Berhtwulf (839-53). ^ Ceolnoth, Archbishop of Canterbury (83370), there are eighty-six, while of the sole monarchy there are twenty of Ecgberht (80238), 265 of Aethelwulf (838-58), and 249 of Aethelbearht (861-6). The only foreign piece in the parcel was one struck at Soissons of Pepin (752-68), the father of Charlemagne. The majority were there- fore struck in the first half of the ninth century, and though the deposit cannot have been made before the year 870, it was evidently not long after that date, and may thus have coincided with the accession of Alfred to the throne of England. It may here be added that the British Museum was indebted to Mr. Robert Barclay of Bury Hill and Mr. George Dewdney of Dorking for examples of types not already 1 Society of Antiquaries, Proceedings, ser. ^, ii. 88. 8 Vol. vi. p. 58 ; the Wendover specimen is figured in the same volume, p. 48. 8 Rygh, Nonke Oldsager, Nos. 713, 714. * Journal of 4nh<tological Institute, . 69. 8 Arciucolo&a, xix. 109, where several pieces are figured. 272
