BROOCH

Incomplete cast copper alloy Roman T-shaped hinged brooch which might be a variant of a Wilsford type with leaf-like mouldings and waist decoration.The brooch is quite corroded, but the remains of the slot to accommodate the pin and hinge is still visible on the back of the head and one wing of the brooch is broken at the end revealing traces of the inner tube which would have held the axial bar. The hinge and axial rod have iron oxide corrosion around them suggesting that they are both made of iron. The pin is missing as is most of its catch plate which would have been at the back of the foot of the bow. The bow is semi-circular in section, tapering to a circular-section foot, at the back of which is the base of the catchplate. The wings have traces of a pattern of grooves encircling them on either side of the head. The brooch is pitted and corroded all over its surface so that the decoration is not clear, but the sides of the head are moulded with triangular recesses which form oblique ridges at the border that meet in the middle of the front of the bow, below the head, and form another triangular recess, which may have originally been enamelled, but no enamel survives. Below this triangular cell, about half way down the bow, there are two circular depressions on either side, which may have originally been enamelled, but they appear too deep for this and may be rivet holes for mounted knops. Below these depressions there are transverse mouldings across the front of the bow which suggest further decoration that originally extended to the foot.

Similar examples from Cornwall on the database can be seen in records CORN-CB1394 and CORN-0226E2, which also have circular depressions on either side of the head that may once have held enamel.

Bayley and Butcher (2004) illustrate a developed T-shaped brooch with similar recessed mouldings on either side of the head and waist decoration on page 166, fig.138, no.T120, which is dated from the 2nd century AD.

Butcher (2016) illustrates a brooch with two bosses on either side of the middle of the bow with an enamelled cell on the front of the bow from Nornour, Isles of Scilly, on page 29, fig.35, no.244, but it is unparalleled and therefore not classified.