Thomas Bateman's Ten Years' Diggings

Thomas Bateman's Ten Years' Diggings

Benty Grange, Derbyshire, 1848

May 3rd,- It was our good fortune to open a barrow which afforded a more instructive collection of relics than has ever been discovered in the county, and which surpasses in interest and remains hitherto recovered from any Anglo-Saxon burying place in the kingdom.

The barrow, which is on a farm called Benty Grange, a high and bleak situation to the right of the road from Ashbourne to Buxton, near the eighth milestone from the latter place, is of inconsiderable elevation, perhaps not more than two feet at the highest point, but is spread over a pretty large area, and is surrounded by a small fosse or trench. About the centre and upon the natural soil, had been laid the only body the barrow ever contained, of which not a vestige besides the hair could be distinguished. Near the place which, from the presence of hair, was judged to have been the situation of the head, was a curious assemblage of ornaments, which, from the peculiarly indurated nature of the earth, it was impossible to remove with any degree of success. The most remarkable are the silver edging and ornaments of a leathern cup, about three inches diameter at the mouth, which was decorated by four wheel shaped ornaments and two crosses of thin silver, affixed by pins of the same metal, clenched inside.

The other articles found in the same situation consists of personal ornaments, the chief of which are two circular enamels upon copper 1 3/4 diameter, in narrow silver frames, and a third, which was so far decomposed as to be irrecoverable; they are enamelled with a yellow interlaced dracontine pattern, intermingled with that peculiar scroll design, visible on the same class of ornaments that figured in Vestiges p.25, and used in several manuscripts of the VIIth Century, for the purpose of decorating the initial letters. The principle of this design consists of three spiral lines springing from a common centre, and each involution forming an additional centre for an extension of the pattern, which may be adapted to fill spaces of almost any form.