An Anglo-Saxon weapons burial at Eastry, Kent.
On Monday 15 th September 2003 Mr Terry Rye of 'Thornton', the High Street, Eastry, unearthed an iron object whilst digging a soak-away for his new conservatory. The object broke into two large pieces during excavation, with a further section remaining in situ in the trench. A copper alloy object was also located. Mr Rye correctly identified the iron object as a sword and, realising that this was probably of archaeological importance, telephoned Kent County Council's Heritage Conservation Team. The FLO for Kent, Andrew Richardson, visited the site the following day.
On arrival at the site the FLO was able to identify the copper alloy object as a 6 th century Anglo-Saxon 'shield-on-tongue' buckle; the sword was also clearly of Anglo-Saxon date.
The site of the burial is in the rear garden of 'Thornton', one of three circa 1950's bungalows fronting onto the eastern side of Eastry High Street . The site is located at NGR TR 3098 5485 and lies opposite Eastry House, where a late 6 th century Anglo-Saxon burial was discovered in 1970.
The grave was orientated West-East, with the head to the West. The cut of the grave was very difficult to identify; it was probably originally cut through a layer of orange-brown silty clay subsoil which overlay the site, but subsequent cultivation appears to have truncated the grave and stratigraphically mixed the subsoil and upper grave fill. Some worked flint flakes and a sherd of grog-tempered prehistoric pottery recovered from the upper fill were probably derived from this subsoil layer. The grave details were as follows:
EASTRY II east, Grave 1.
Axis W-E. Grave rectangular with rounded ends, steep sides, flat base, approximately 1.99m long by 0.70m wide. Depth below bottom of subsoil 0.14m. Fill of grave comprised brown silty clay with very occasional small flint pebbles.
Skeleton extended supine, very poor bone preservation, the only substantial remains being traces of both femurs. Adult.
Grave goods:
- Spear. Iron spearhead, leaf-shaped. At west end of grave, probably to right of skull.
- Knife. Iron knife blade, straight back and curved blade, end of blade only seen. At centre of torso. Lost during excavation.
- Sheet. Fragment of copper alloy sheet amongst area of organic material. On right side of torso.
- Sword. Iron sword with remains of wooden scabbard. Lying along left side of upper body, point towards feet.
- Buckle. Copper alloy shield-on-tongue buckle. Above area of right pelvis.
- Shield.
- Iron boss. Lying dome upwards over feet. Domed carinated boss with short strap handle and traces of wood from shield board extant on underside.
- Iron rivet. Disc attachment to shield board.
- Iron rivet. Disc attachment to shield board.
- Iron rivet. Disc attachment to shield board.
- Iron rivet. Disc attachment to shield board.
• Buckle. Small sub-rectangular buckle, found in area of shield. Possibly from a strap attached to the shield?
Figure 1: A plan photo of the Eastry burial.
All the finds and contents of the burial were kindly donated by Mr and Mrs Rye to Dover Museum , and it is now hoped that funds can be found to facilitate the conservation and analysis of these.
Figure 2: The weapons burial being excavated.
The location of the discovery is very interesting; we now have burials of 6 th century date within the village of Eastry and lying immediately to either side of the Roman road which bisects the village. There are parallels from Kent for early Anglo-Saxon cemeteries which straddle a road or trackway, for instance the group of three cemeteries located at Saltwood during the construction of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link. The burial at Eastry House should thus no longer be regarded as an isolated one, and the balance of probability is that considerable numbers of further graves await discovery on either side of the road at this site (albeit many must have been damaged or destroyed by the various houses and other structures in the vicinity).
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