Monument record 5016/1 - Probable 7th century Saxon Cemetery

Three Saxon inhumations were found on the south side of Hardingstone. Two had grave goods, including a necklace dating to the 7th century.

{1} Excavation of 1967-8. Three Saxon inhumations of mid C7th date. Two were with grave goods including iron knives and an iron buckle, a necklace and a silver pendant. Excavation by Woods. SP764574.

{2} List of burial goods associated with each burial;

{3} Little information about the cemetery is preserved in the site archive. Three burials were found, two of which were furnished. While the objects were retained, grave plans and locational information have not and the location of the skeletal material is unknown. Grave 1 was unfurnished, Grave 2 contained an iron knife under the left elbow and an iron buckle in an unknown position. Grave 3 contained a necklace of beads and pendants of a type characteristic of the well-furnished female graves of 7th-century Anglo-Saxon England as well as an iron knife. The buckle is a simple form, in use throughout the 6th and 7th centuries. The knives also belong to relatively common, long-lived types that are not particularly chronologically sensitive.

The 12 surviving elements of the necklace were analysed in terms of their material composition and manufacture. The bulla pendants, cabochon pendant, wound-spiral beads, doughnut beads and the wire-mounted bead all date the period beginning in the 630s and ending with the general cessation of furnished burial in the 680s.

<1> Royal Commission on The Historical Monuments of England, 1985, An Inventory of The Historical Monuments in The County of Northampton, p.290/Site 24 (checked) (Series). SNN77383.

<2> NDC SMR Records, AS23 (Database). SNN103358.

<3> Haworth, K, 2018, A 7th-century Necklace from Hardingstone, Northamptonshire, England (Article). SNN111468.

<4> Historic England, Unknown, Oral information, correspondence (not archived) or staff comments (Oral Report). SNN111577.

Record last edited

Mar 5 2024 3:05PM