ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS A suggestion was indeed made that the handle belonged to a mirror, but the find as a whole corresponds so closely with the relics from Des- borough, Northants, 1 now preserved in the British Museum, that the question may be regarded as settled. A flat handle is characteristic of the skillets used by the Romans and apparently the Romanized Britons for sacrificial purposes, 2 and the present example was 6 inches long and an inch wide, terminating in a disc i inches in diameter, with a raised knob in the centre. From a mere fragment of the rim the diameter of the bowl was calculated to be about 6 inches, but the Desborough specimen, which had a handle of the same length, was 10 inches across. The vessel would by analogy have had a depth of 3 inches, and in shape was intermediate between a modern saucepan and frying-pan, though the bottom was slightly rounded. In the same deposit was a bead of amethyst an inch and a quarter long, which was said to be of lilac-coloured transparent pebble ; and a black stone, just over an inch in diameter, set in a looped circlet of gold, as was also an oval garnet, which measured rather more than half an inch in length. Other objects of the precious metal were a barrel- shaped bead of wire, five-eighths of an inch long and similar in shape to two smaller beads of silver, and two ornaments of conical form about a third of an inch in diameter, with a loop attached. Gold wire beads and garnet pendants set in the same metal were also found with the skillet at Desborough, only about eighteen miles from Clifton ; and the parallel is too close to be entirely accidental. An important discovery, which also finds a parallel in the adjoining county, was made in 1824 on the line of the Watling Street, about a mile from Cestersover, between Bensford (Bransford or Beresford) Bridge and the turnpike road leading from Rugby to Lutterworth. The road was under repair, and the labourers excavated a number of human skeletons which lay buried in the centre and on both sides of the road, at a distance of 1 8 inches or 2 feet below the surface. With them were found weapons, shield- bosses, and spearheads varying from 6 to 15 inches in length and retaining traces of the wooden shaft in the socket ; knives and iron buckles, brooches of various shapes, clasps, rings, tweezers and feminine orna- ments. The majority were of bronze, some few of silver, and there CINERARY URN, CESTERSOVER (CHURCHOVER). 1 Victoria History of Northants, i. 238.
- A list and details of such vessels are given by Mr. Romilly Allen in Arckttok&a Cambrensil,
ser. 6, i. 35. 253
