The Rothley Bronze Age Metalwork Hoard

                        LEIC-4F6B02  LEIC-A6BB51   LEIC-A67B11   LEIC-A665D7

 

This Bronze Age metalwork hoard has a wide date range of 1140 – 800 BC, as it contains two socketed axes (1020-800BC), an older Palstave type axe (1140-1020BC) and a very rare complete bronze axe mould for a Welby type axe  (1020-800BC) – these were named after the village of Welby, Leicestershire, after the first of its type was found in a hoard there in 1875 and the axes now have a distribution across south and eastern England.

Complete Bronze axe moulds are exceptionally rare finds. When this was found a Sompting type axe mould was known from Roseberry Topping, Yorkshire, the PAS recorded one which was found for sale along with the rest of its hoard in an Oxford antiques shop (BERK-56BD17) and one is held by The Collection in Lincoln.

Since then the PAS has added a few more such as Sutton, Suffolk (SF-839555 ) and  one from Oxfordshire (BUC-7E5EA8).

Found in 2009, the hoard can be seen at Charnwood Museum