Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

An Anglo Saxon disc brooch was discovered in 1883, possibly during the construction of the houses on Priory Hill. The brooch is a fine example in exceptional preservation of a common type. The brooch was located in Dover museum but was stolen in 1967. (location accurate to the nearest 100m based on available information)

Monument Types

• FINDSPOT (Early Medieval or Anglo-Saxon - 600 AD? to 799 AD?)

Associated Finds

• BROOCH (Early Medieval or Anglo-Saxon - 600 AD to 799 AD)

Full description

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Taken from source: An Anglo Saxon brooch was found on the 17th of April, 1883 in the excavation for the foundations of houses on Priory Hill. It was noted as having been found in identical circumstances to ‘fragments if swords and spears, limpet shells and jasper stones in Anglo Saxon graves. The diameter of the brooch is recorded as 48mm; it was not a composite though it was a fine example in exceptional preservation of a common type. Reading from the centre the design comprised a central boss; a tabular garnet in a domed gold collar, with a flat outer ring of worn twisted filigree wire between two narrow bands, the inner of which had two pins in it; this gold setting was placed on the flawless whit boss, which had a smooth gold collar fitting around its base and outside this a beaded ring. The inner zone; a pattern of step cut stones with two ‘dog-legged’ pieces between each upright and reversed T-piece. All, except perhaps the reversed T-pieces, which were small and at least two missing, seem to have been of garnet though normally the upright T’s would be blue. The ‘star points’; simple triangles of garnet based on the upright T’s and bearing tribrach-pieces (one missing) on their apices. The tribrachs were the only pieces were clearly not garnet on foil, but distinctly opaque and bubbly; the design certainly included some blue glass. The outer bosses joined to the inner order by oblong slabs, probably of garnet; the tabular garnet discs had upstanding collars with two rows of pearling on the flat outer band; the outer collars of the whit bosses were plain. The filigree; four zones of single strand ornaments divided by single strands except for the upper most division which was of ‘pseudo-plait’. The innermost had two rows of annulets, sometimes divided by an extra strand; the second had two rows if annulets sometimes divided by an extra strand; the second had S-coils, the third two rows of annulets and the outermost S- coils again. The outer border; another and heavier, beaded ring was as usual, soldered just within the cast flange, which bore a single, continuous niello zig-zag, in place of the usual several orders which end in an interrupted beading. (1) The brooch was located in Dover museum but was stolen in 1967. (2)

<1> S. E. Rigold and L. E. Webster, Archaeologia Cantiana: Three Anglo Saxon Disk Brooches. Vol 85, Arch Cant 85, 1970,8-12, (S.E. Rigold and L.E. Webster) (Article in serial). SKE31917.

<2> John Willson, 1988, Kent Archaeological Review: Saxon Burials from Priory Hill Dover. Vol. 94 (Article in serial). SKE31919.

Sources and further reading

Related records