BROOCH

Early Anglo-Saxon copper-alloy supporting-arm brooch. Sub-rectangular head with narrow rib bordering the upper edge, large triple ring-and-dot in the centre and alternating narrow ribs and broad shallow grooves on both chamfered concave lower edges which spring from both sides of the median arris on the bow. The bow has a convex reverse. The concave lower edges run smoothly into the bow, which has a flat triangular facet at its base with twin engraved transverse lines and two opposed notches. There is a narrow transverse rib at the springing of the foot; the foot is decorated with two opposed shallow notches between twin engraved transverse lines. A broken single central lug on the back of the head contains iron corrosion, and the catch-plate contains a fragment of the iron pin on the reverse of the foot. The catchplate runs right down to the end of the foot. Length 37mm. Width of head 23mm.

Barry Ager comments: 'Your hunch is right about it being a supporting-arm brooch, but the single lug for the pin is very unusual as most of them seem to have two, or even three. It looks closest to the Perlberg type, some of which have quite rectangular heads, like the one from Linton Heath, gr. 49 (Evison 1977, fig. 1g). Evison suggested that most English examples developed slightly from the continental form in some new way (1977, 129), so the brooch from Woodton probably illustrates an example of this trend. It is sometimes said that iron pins represent the replacement of broken or lost copper-alloy originals, but there are so many of them on all types of brooches that I don't find it entirely convincing as a general rule'.