An Anglo-Saxon Site at Thurnham

In March 1967 a gold pendant cross was discovered by Mr P. Beer whilst harrowing a field near the village of Thurnham (Kelly 1967). The cross, which was inlaid with garnets, dated to the mid-7th century AD and would probably have formed the central ornament of an elaborate necklace belonging to an Anglo-Saxon lady of considerable status. Clearly the finding of such a piece suggested that an Anglo-Saxon burial might be present; the site was listed as an isolated find that might be indicative of a burial in the author’s thesis on Anglo-Saxon cemeteries in Kent (Richardson 2000). However, between 1967 and 2003 no further finds of Anglo-Saxon date were recorded from this site, although it is of course possible that unreported finds were made during this period. On 9th August 2003, however, Nigel Betts, John Drayvill, Brian Pett and Keith Stanford, all members of the Mid-Kent Metal Detector Club, decided to carry out a metal detector search of the field, having obtained permission to do so from the landowner. During this search Nigel recovered an oval gold pendant set with a piece of polychrome mosaic glass (fig 1), and Keith found a gold biconical spacer bead (fig 2). In the following days a second glass inlaid gold pendant, this example being pear-shaped, was found by Nigel (fig 3), and three sections of an elaborate copper alloy chatelaine lamp were found by John and Brian (fig 4).

Realising the potential significance of their discovery, the finders quickly contacted the Kent Finds Liaison Officer, who met them on site a few days later. Findspots were plotted using a handheld GPS device, and it was established that the finds were scattered across an area of approximately 20m by 5m. This scatter of finds lay not far from the recorded findspot of the cross pendant found in 1967. All were of a comparable date to the cross, and the pendants and spacer bead were exactly the type of objects that would be expected to form the necklace of which the cross would have formed the centre piece. It thus seemed likely that the contents of a single high status female burial had been disturbed by ploughing.

The pendants, bead and chatelaine fittings were all declared Treasure at an inquest held by Roger Sykes, the Coroner for Mid-Kent on Friday 11th June 2004, where it was heard that the balance of probability was that all these items were derived from a single burial.

Given the importance of these finds, it was decided to carry out an excavation at the site. The aims of this were as follows:

• to provide a context for recovered finds and to confirm the presence of a burial or burials at the site;
• to recover any other finds from the same context or burial;
• to gain information on the probable size and extent of the site;
• to establish the level of disturbance and damage to which the site has been subjected;
• to mitigate the potential threat of the site being looted when the finds become public knowledge;
• and to meet the threat of damage to the context of the recovered finds through the process of ongoing ploughing.

Having obtained a Home Office licence for the removal of any human remains and the permission of the landowner, this excavation took place between Sunday 15th and Friday 20th August 2004. The author led a team including volunteers from the Portable Antiquities Scheme, Kent County Council, Kent Archaeological Society, University of Kent at Canterbury, Maidstone Area Archaeological Group and Otford Archaeological Group, among others. The find spots were checked, Nigel Betts in particular spending virtually the whole weekend on site. Mr Mark Yates kindly assisted with a geophysical survey and by plotting the site grid using GPS on the first day of fieldwork.

The difficulty presented by this site was that the finds were widely scattered, with no obvious point of origin. Thus a series of 25 trenches were dug (the majority by hand) across the area of the scatter in an effort to locate a grave or graves. For most of the week, no significant finds were recovered, although tantalisingly small fragments of clearly ancient and possibly human bone were recovered from a number of trenches.

number of trenches. These included a very worn human tooth from Trench 15 found by Helen Jarvis. Finally, late on Thursday afternoon, Michael Lewis, former Kent Finds Liaison Officer and now Deputy Head of the Portable Antiquities Scheme, located some bones in the end of Trench 16. Excavation the following day revealed a single very badly damaged inhumation, aligned west-east. No grave cut was identified; the body had in fact simply been laid on the chalk bedrock. Neither was there any trace of a ring ditch, but some of the chalk surfaces in the immediate vicinity of the body showed possible signs of weathering, prompting speculation that the grave had been covered by a barrow mound formed by scraping topsoil from the surrounding area. No grave goods survived with the body, although two iron nails from beyond the feet might be evidence of a coffin.

Opinion amongst the excavation team remains divided as to whether this slight, shallow burial is the one from which such exquisite jewellery was derived. However, no trace of any other burials were found, and the widely scattered grave goods imply a badly damaged grave. A major question remains "were any unreported finds made between 1967 and 2003?" Furthermore, the whereabouts of the first find, the gold cross, is currently unknown. The author would be very interested to hear from any readers with any information on either matter.

Andrew Richardson
Kent Finds Liaison Officer

References:

Kelly, D.B. 1967. Thurnham. Archaeologia Cantiana 82, 297-8.

Richardson, A.F. 2000. The Anglo-Saxon Cemeteries of Kent. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Wales, Cardiff.