ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS found resembling those from Marston Hill ; and several circular speci- mens, including a pair with applied plates (fig. 14) bearing an embossed design like one from Kettering already described. An object generally known as a girdle-hanger was among the finds, and had probably served as a framework at the mouth of a reticule attached to the waist of Anglian women. The exact use of these bronze attachments has always been rather uncertain, but the question was virtually settled by the discovery of a specimen at Sporle, Norfolk, to which some textile had evidently been attached by metal rings.' The small clasps (figs. 13, 15) mentioned in the account of the Holdenby excavations resemble some already noticed from Marston and were no doubt used like them to fasten the bracelet. Several of the brooches were silvered, and one had traces of gilding. Some iron rings of various sizes were found with the female skeletons, and in one grave were found a number of broken pieces of ivory, apparently the remains of a bracelet. Ivory is very exceptional in such finds, but there are in the British Museum similar bracelets from Sleaford in Lincolnshire, and Long Wittenham in Berkshire, and also a large brooch of ivory and bronze from Kempston near Bedford. All the interments discovered on this occasion were as before near the surface, in no case at a greater depth than twenty inches ; and many have doubtless been disturbed and destroyed in the past on this account. In digging for the foundations of the Lunatic Asylum (St. Andrew's Hospital) at Northampton in 1836, several skeletons were found. The accompanying brooches, including one large specimen with the hollow parts gilt, resembled those from the Marston cemetery, but the find was not fully recorded.^ Cinerary urns of various sizes have also been found in the town, associated with coins of the Lower Empire, while in 1837 on the same site signs of cremation were met with, also portions of two large square-headed brooches which are peculiar in having raised ornaments at the top corners as though in imitation of the garnet settings sometimes found on the better speci- mens of this class. They resemble in this respect specimens from Kenninghall, Norfolk, now in the British Museum, and others from Cambridgeshire.^ One has also studs projecting from the wings of the stem, and a similar stud occurs in the centre of a saucer-shaped brooch from the same site. Seven years later in a tumulus now partly levelled but still to be recognized in Cow Meadow were discovered two small urns evidently not intended to hold ashes, with a pierced circular brooch having a fylfot in the centre and belonging to a type common in this county and in East Anglia. Different opinions have been expressed as to the date of the earthwork at Northampton Castle, the difficulty being to decide how much earlier the mound was than the Norman structure.* During some excavations ' C. R. Smith, Collectanea Antique, vol. ii. p. 235 ; cf. Archteologia, vol. 50, p. 387.
- Archrsologia, vol. xlviii. p. 337. ' Neville, Saxon Obsequies, pll. I, 5, 6.
- Associated Architectural Societies (i88i), Northants, p. 71 : 1880, p. 204, and 1882, p. 246.
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