Page:VCH Northamptonshire 1.djvu/309

ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS As long ago as 1757 relics of the Saxon period were brought to light at Desborough.' In a gravel-pit on the north side of the parish at a depth of about two feet were discovered several entire human skeletons, with a number of amber and glass beads lying near the breast-bones of one of them. Also, an iron ring with several ' brass clasps,' which were supposed to have connected the garments in which the deceased was buried. In the same pit were found tv/o urns containing bones and ashes, and Desborough must therefore be classed with Brixworth, Holdenby, Clipstone and Northampton, as exhibiting traces of both methods of burial in vogue among the Teutonic invaders of this part of the country. Many interments were discovered in another part of the same village in 1865, accompanied by articles of bronze, but the relics were dispersed and no adequate description published. By far the most impor- tant discovery was made about the year 1876 in a grass field close to the village, about 300 yards east of the parish church, and within an area which appears to have been an ancient encampment.* A parallelogram of about four acres could at that time be distinctly traced by the fosses faintly indicated in the pasture, where left undisturbed by the diggers for ironstone. Within the enclosure a number of ancient interments were found, the bodies not having been buried in coffins, but simply laid in pits sunk in the baring or top-soil. The position of the graves was well marked, as they were filled up with black earth, contrasting with the tawny- coloured mass. At the bottom of these dark patches the skeletons were usually found very decayed and friable, and many of the graves were empty or contained nothing but a few fragments of bone, with occasional pieces of coarse pottery and burnt stones mixed with the earth. The sepulchral trenches, of which a plan is given in the original account, were roughly made, wide at the top and narrow at the bottom, invariably running to the east and the south-west. Where there were skeletons, the feet were to the east, but in all the pits appeared traces of fire in the shape of pieces of stone burnt red, either ironstone or a kind of freestone not found in the village. In one instance a pit, found to be empty, was lined with clay at the bottom, and in this were embedded stones set edgewise and presenting traces of fire. In all about sixty interments were found in the enclosure, and in two of them were discovered some very remarkable objects now preserved in the national collection. Of these the finest and most interesting is a gold necklace (fig. 2), which lay disconnected near the head of a skeleton. It consists of thirty- seven pieces, viz., seventeen barrel-shaped or doubly conical beads, slightly varying in size, and made of spirally coiled gold wire ; two cylindrical beads of similar make, which have been connected with the clasps ; nine circular pendants of gold, convex on one face and flat on the other, some with beaded edges and all provided with hoops by which they are strung ; eight gold pendants of various shapes and sizes, set with garnets and suspended by loops of delicate work, all the edges 1 Gentleman's Magazine, 1757, p. 21. * Archaologia, vol. xlv. p. 466. 237