BROOCH

A very unusual, worn but almost complete early Anglo-Saxon cast copper alloy small-long brooch. The head of the brooch is sub-rectangular (16.6mm x 11.5mm), with very slightly convex sides. There is faint evidence of stamped punchmarks around the edge of the head, the stamps probably originally annulets. On the reverse of the head there is an integral lug through which the pin bar would have originally passed. This is now full of iron corrosion suggesting the pin bar was originally iron.

From one of the longer sides there protrudes an integral hemispherically arched bow. The front surface of the bow is raised to a central peak along its length which is facetted on both flanks. The sides of the bow are squared and the reverse face is flat which creates a sub-pentagonal cross section.

Attached integrally to the lower end of the bow is a shaped flat foot plate. At the top this curves out and in again before expanding to a lozengiform shape and finally ending in a long narrow terminal. Very unusually for a small-long brooch, the foot has moulded relief decoration consisting of a double-ridged border around the upper curved edge, the double lines merging into a single raised border around the lozengiform part. In the curved part of the plate there are two sub-circular depressions, one either side of the longitudinal axis of the brooch. The lozenge-shaped area has a centrallat-topped raised lozenge.

The narrow terminal is 11.6mm long and extends with a slight taper from the lower corner of the lozenge. It is D-shaped in cross-section and decorated with two groups of three transverse ridges above a small globular (or perhaps faceted) knop.

There is no catchplate and there is no evidence of fracture on the reverse of the brooch, implying that it was either separately made and attached or has been worn flush by post-deposition abrasion. There is iron staining across the width of the curved upper part with a gap in the centre, suggesting the catchplate was located here.

The head and bow are absolutely typical of a small-long brooch, but the shape of the foot is less usual and the presence of relief decoration is extremely rare. It looks more like the foot of a small square-headed brooch.