Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

Early-medieval burial ground, with a number of graves and associated goods; a buckle, bowl, glass and pottery vessels, sword, shield-bosses and a gold stud.

The site lieson top of a gravel ridge, the ground sloping down to the south-east. OD 10-15m.

Monument Types

• CEMETERY (CEMETERY, Early Medieval or Anglo-Saxon - 410 AD to 650 AD)

Associated Finds

• BEAKER (Undated)
• BOWL (Early Medieval or Anglo-Saxon - 410 AD to 650 AD)
• BUCKLE (Early Medieval or Anglo-Saxon - 410 AD to 650 AD)
• SCABBARD (Early Medieval or Anglo-Saxon - 410 AD to 650 AD)
• SHERD (Early Medieval or Anglo-Saxon - 410 AD to 650 AD)
• SHIELD (Early Medieval or Anglo-Saxon - 410 AD to 650 AD)
• SPEAR (Early Medieval or Anglo-Saxon - 410 AD to 650 AD)
• SWORD (Early Medieval or Anglo-Saxon - 410 AD to 650 AD)

Full description

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[TR 22696044] Anglo-Saxon Burial Ground [NR] (1) An Anglo-Saxon cemetery was found in 1886-7 by Dowker in a gravel pit not far from Grove-Wickham Road about a quarter of a mile east [shouldbe north] of Supperton. [TR 226599]. (2-4) Although Miss Chadwick (a) gives no present whereabouts of the finds from this cemetery a number of A.S. objects from Wickhambreux in the Arnold Collection, Maidstone Museum, possibly refer. The pit, long disused, has been waste ground until recently, but part has now been developed for housing. (5) TR 226603. Anglo-Saxon cemetery. 1886. Dowker was given some iron fragments found in a gravel pit in Wickhambreux, quarter of a mile north of Supperton Farm. He recognized some as Anglo-Saxon swords and spears and 2 shield-bosses. There were also fragments of pottery 0.5 inch thick, of dark grey ware filled with small angular fragments of white flint. In one large grave was a bronze bowl with a vandyked rim, a sword and scabbard with a gold stud, a bronze buckle with a garnet hinge and a triangular gold plate, and a clawbeaker at the verybottom of the grave. 1910. A small grey carinated urn of hardware, found at Wickhambreux, was displayed for many years as Roman, but is very like an Anglo- Saxon urn form Faversham. The site of its discovery is unknown, but that of the 1886 finds is on low ground east of Stodmarsh overlooking the marshy ground of the Great Stow. (6) Also found were a bottle (7) and a biconical bowl. (8) Notes on a small grey urn. (9) Brief mention of some of the finds described in (6). Additional bibliography (7-14)

<1> OS 6" 1961 (OS Card Reference). SKE48369.

<2> Arch Cant 17 1887 6-9 illust (G Dowker) (OS Card Reference). SKE34762.

<3> Arch Cant 21 1895 LVI (OS Card Reference). SKE34832.

<4> VCH Kent 1 1908 356-7 (OS Card Reference). SKE50847.

<5> Md Arch 2 1958 68 (S E Chadwick) (OS Card Reference). SKE46592.

<6> Maidstone Museum Accessions Index (OS Card Reference). SKE46394.

<7> F1 CFW 20-SEP-63 (OS Card Reference). SKE42675.

<8> A Gaz of Early Anglo Saxon Burial Sites 1964 140 (A L S Meaney) (OS Card Reference). SKE32780.

<9> A Corpus of Wheel-thrown Pottery in Anglo-Saxon Graves 1979 74 (V I Evison) (OS Card Reference). SKE32768.

<10> A Corpus of Wheel-thrown Pottery in Anglo-Saxon Graves 1979 77 (V I Evison) (OS Card Reference). SKE32769.

<11> Arch Cant 39 1927 36 (W Whiting) (OS Card Reference). SKE35072.

<12> The Arts in Early England 4 1915 716 pl CXLVII (G Baldwin Brown) (OS Card Reference). SKE50100.

<13> Field report for monument TR 26 SW 9 - September, 1963 (Bibliographic reference). SKE5893.

<14> Andrew Richardson, 2000, Gazetteer of Anglo-Saxon Cemeteries and Burial-Sites in Kent (Unpublished document). SKE29253.

Sources and further reading