Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

Early-medieval cemetery containing 2 recorded graves. An Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Eastry House, Eastry. In 1970 Mrs S Hawkes recorded a later 6th century female inhumation with beads, a silver pendant and a Gotlandic square-headed brooch in a pipe trench. Of bronze gilt, decorated with cloisons set with garnets, blue glass and shell, the brooch has a bow-disc ornamented by gold foil embellished with filigree, garnets and shell. This grave is on the opposite side of the road and some way North of previously recorded Anglo-Saxon burials from Eastry and probably marks the site of yet another cemetery. The site lies on the brow of a gentle north-east facing slope. OD 25m. Designated Eastry ii West.

Monument Types

• CEMETERY (CEMETERY, Early Medieval or Anglo-Saxon - 567 AD to 599 AD)

Full description

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TR 309 549 An Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Eastry House, Eastry. In 1970 Mrs S Hawkes recorded a C7 female inhumation with beads, a silver pendant and a Gotlandic square-headed brooch in a pipe trench. Of bronze gilt, decorated with cloisons set with garnets, blue glass and shell, the brooch has a bow-disc ornamented by gold foil embellished with filigree, garnets and shell. This grave is on the opposite side of the road and some way N of previously recorded Anglo-Saxon burials from Eastry and probably marks the site of yet another cemetery. (1) The skeleton of a young Anglo-Saxon female was found during the excavation of pipe trenches in 1970. The site is a few hundred metres N from the main cemetery (TR 35 SW 1). The finds included a jewelled gilt-bronze square-headed brooch, jewelled bronze stud, jewelled silver and gold disc, beads and an ornament of sheet silver. The square-headed brooch is of a type new to England dated to the late C6 or early C7. This burial is very unusual in having an early vendel period bow-button brooch. The burial may be dated to the latter part of the C6 AD. Eastry was an important administrative centre from the third quarter of the C7. S Hawkes divides the cemeteries around Eastry into four groups and these are shown on illustration card no 1 (see TR35 SW 1, TR 35 SW 36, TR 35 NW 32). (1,2) additional reference (3)

<1> Md Arch 16 1972 156-7 (LE Webster and J Cherry) (OS Card Reference). SKE46583.

<2> BAR AS studies 81-113 (SC Hawkes, D Brown and J Campbell) (OS Card Reference). SKE37589.

<3> Andrew Richardson, 2000, Gazetteer of Anglo-Saxon Cemeteries and Burial-Sites in Kent (Unpublished document). SKE29253.

Sources and further reading