Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/314

This page has been validated.
286
HORSE-SHOES AND HORSE-SHOEING.

fourteen hands high. From circumstances connected with their discovery, they were surmised to be at least a thousand years old.

Some years ago there were found in a graveyard in Berkshire (already alluded to by Mr Cuming) three horse-shoes accompanied by purely Saxon remains. Drawings of these and their accompanying relics are now in the possession of Mr C. Roach Smith, and to him I am indebted for permission to copy the former. It will be seen that one of the shoes (fig. 1 08), the smallest (4 inches in length and width), is of the primitive type, and still retains a nail; while the other two (figs. 109, 110) are comparatively large and heavy, one with calkins, the other without; both have the even border, and but little to distinguish them from mediæval horse-shoes.

The occurrence of these two varieties in the same place, along with unmistakable Saxon relics, testifies that they were both in use at this period, and reminds us of the Frankish speci-