SPINDLE WHORL

Cast lead spindle whorl, circular in plan, lozenge-shaped in profile and bi-convex in section. The central hole is circular in plan and cylindrical in profile and measures 9 mm in diameter and 12 mm in height. One face of the whorl has an incuse ring of pellets around the hole that is 23 mm in diameter and this is inset from the upper border of the decoration running around the waist of the whorl in the form of repeated ovoid loops with raised annulets at each centre, perhaps echoing the spindle. The opposite face has a border, 15 mm in diameter, of interlocked chevrons, which look like ropework or textile, around the edge of the whole for the wooden spindle. Examples of lead spindle whorls with similar decoration can be found on the database, such as LVPL-A75763 with repeating arches and loops each containing a pellet and a pellet between each arch, which are dated from the late Medieval period.

These weights, usually thought to be spindle whorls, are common finds in other regions of the country, but not in Cornwall, and were in use over a long time during the Medieval and early Post-Medieval periods. The cut-off biconical shape is distinctive and typical of them, as is the raised decoration, with variations using lines, chevrons and pellets more common than those with incuse decoration like the example still in place on a wooden spindle excavated from Austin Friars in Leicester and reproduced in the Portable Antiquities Scheme Finds Recording Guide as illustration 34, dating from the 15th to the 16th century.

Griffiths, Philpott & Egan (2007) illustrate similar lead spindle whorls with foliate and lobed motifs on page 179, plate 34, nos.2198-2200, which date from the late Medieval period.