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ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS ceased altogether. Such a disturbance of the road-metal would not of course impede an advance from the south by this route, but burials with brooches of the sixth century below the crown of the road illustrate in a graphic manner the changes that had taken place during the century and a half since the Roman officials withdrew from Britain and left the province to its own resources in face of Teutonic invasion. The Trent is known to have passed through Mercia just as the Thames passed through Wessex of the sixth century, the river no doubt affording the easiest means of access and communication in both cases. Though in Saxon times the lower valley of the Trent was practically one vast morass, access to its course above Newark was rendered easy by the existence of the Fosse Way from Lincoln, which was itself readily approached by river from the coast. What slight indications there are of the manner in which this area became English ground, suggest that the main body passed up the river past the future Nottingham to the junction with the Soar, and there divided, part going westward towards the site of Burton and burying their dead at Mel- bourne, Foremark, and Stapenhill, 9 and others passing up the tributary and leaving traces of their occupation in such burial-grounds as that adjoining Kingston Hall. 10 Little more than ten miles southward along the valley is the site of the first Anglo-Saxon discoveries recorded in Leicestershire. The value of discoveries at Rothley Temple has been much impaired by careless excavation ; but there can be no doubt that the site was occupied in early Anglo-Saxon times. As long ago as 1784 a number of Roman coins, chiefly of the Emperor Constantine (306 37), and a circular piece of bronze, being perhaps part of a brooch, were found by a labourer digging a ditch in a field near Rothley Temple. A few yards distant, remains of a building and the cruciform brooch here illustrated (coloured plate, fig. 3) were met with at a depth of 2 ft. ; and 60 yards from the spot was a tesselated pavement about 4 ft. square, lying about i ft. from the surface and consisting of limestone and burnt clay cubes, this latter of several colours. These discoveries were re- ported to the Society of Antiquaries of London u by the occupant of Rothley Temple, Thomas Babington, the uncle of Lord Macaulay, and the brooch was presented by him in 1788 to the society, by whose permission it is reproduced. This unwieldy and barbaric ornament is practically the final form in England of the ' long ' brooch common in the Scandinavian countries and in parts of England, but its parentage could hardly be divined, so extensive are the changes introduced both in outline and decoration. The three limbs of the head represent the knobs attached to the edges of the square or oblong plate of the Scandinavian brooch, which was of stout bronze with faceted foot terminating in a * horse's head,' and with the head sometimes raised across the centre and lightly stamped with rings or other simple patterns. The tendency in England was to flatten the knobs and the bow, and to broaden the extremities. For the plain surface of the bronze was substituted gilding, engraving, and silver plates or discs attached to the terminals and ' V.C.H. Derb. i, 272-5. 10 V.C.H. Notts, i, 201. 11 MS. Minutes, vol. xxii, 433 ; Arch, ix, 370 ; Nichols, Hist, of Leie. iii, 956, pi. 129 ; Akerman, Pagan SaxonJom, pi. xx, fig. 2 (brooch), 40. For further Roman discoveries, see Leic. Trans, ix, 157, 239 (1901) ; Proc. Soc. Antiq. xix, 245. i 225 29