| Summary : An extensive Anglo-Saxon cemetery, featuring both inhumations and cremations, on Lovedon Hill. Initial excavations occurred in the 1920s, but deep ploughing since 1955 has led to further extensive excavations. Between 1955 and 1963 some 500 urned cremations, 2 cremations in cists, and groups of inhumations, possibly originally interred in or beneath barrows were found. In one instance, the upper part of a column from a Romano-British building had been used to cover a double inhumation. In 1972, further excavations identified 1245 cremations and 32 inhumations. Grave goods and other finds include glass claw beakers, a Coptic bowl, bronze hanging bowls and buckets, ornaments, and pottery. A number of enclosures of possible Early Medieval date are visible as cropmarks on air photographs in the vicinity of the cemetery. Also visible on air photographs is a circular ditch surrounding a mound. This may be identified with a mound previously identified as a barrow but more recently interpreted as a natural knoll. If the mound and knoll are one and the same, then the presence of a ring ditch might support its interpretation as a barrow. A possible Neolithic flint flake was found in the vicinity of the "barrow". The presence of the Roman column fragment has led to the inclusion of the site in Scott's gazetteer of Roman villas. However, it should be noted that more extensive Romano-British finds have been made nearby [SK 94 NW 26]. |
More information : [SK 90784581] Tumulus [G.T.] (1)
Extensive Anglo-Saxon inhumation and cremation burial ground on
Loveden Hill.
Some 45 urns, found when the barrow was excavated in 1925/6, were
part of the major cremation cemetery and not limited to the barrow area.
Since 1955 deep ploughing and excavation over an area of
approximately 11 acres to the south and south-east of the barrow
[area SK 90794577] has yielded remains of about 500 urns, 2
cremations in cists, and traces of groups of inhumations probably
interred in barrows, the urnfield being superimposed upon them. Eight
of the inhumations are described.(10) One, at the known northern
extremity of the cemetery, may be a Christian burial. There is a
"possibility of a temple site adjacent.(4)."
The upper part (2ft 10in long and about 16in across) of a column from
a Romano-British building was used to cover a double inhumation.
There were probably over 1,000 burials in all.
The site is exceptionally rich in grave goods. Bronze and iron
implements, bronze hanging bowls and bucket, ornaments, toilet
implements, glass, including beads, etc. Anglian, Frisian and Saxon
styles of pottery are represented, Anglian predominating. It seems
likely that the Angles formed the early leaders of the settlement.
Decoration on the hanging bowls, etc, and the pottery indicates that
the cemetery was in use from the middle of the 5th century at the
very latest, till the late 7th century. One pot and a fragment of a
second suggest that runic writing was known. [See AO/LP/63/333 & 334.
(10)]
Some of the finds are in the British and Grantham Museums. (2-10)
The whole of the site is under plough. There is a scatter of debris
at SK 9083 4582 and the site of the tumulus can be identified at
SK 90784582. Museums at Newark, Lincoln, Grantham, Nottingham and
Scunthorpe hold material from this burial ground. (11)
Excavation of the Anglo-Saxon cemetery, on Loveden Hill, in 1972,
prior to deep ploughing, produced 1245 cremations and 32 inhumations
with a wide variety of grave goods and pottery forms and decoration.
Mr N Kerr the excavator states that the previously excavated "barrow"
is a natural knoll. (12-13)
Glass claw beakers catalogued. (14)
Coptic bowl found in area between the two excavations. (15)
[SK 907 458] ?Neolithic flint flake found on W side of `barrow'.(16)
Additional references. (17-18)
A number of possible Early Medieval enclosures were seen as
cropmarks, in the vicinity of the Anglo Saxon cemetery referred to
by the previous authority, and mapped from poor quality air
photographs. A circular ditched enclosure, with diameter 10m,
surrounding a mound is centred at SK 9078 4582. The enclosure and
mound could be natural because they are at the same location as the
natural knoll described by the previous authority but I have recorded
it because the cropmark enclosure surrounds a mound and may not be
related to the knoll. Adjacent are the fragmentary remains of two
conjoined rectilinear ditched enclosures, 40m wide, and centred at
SK 9081 4577. An incomplete oval enclosure, measuring 15m by 10m, is
centred at SK 9081 4572. At the bottom of the hill is another
fragment of a possible enclosure, centred at SK 9094 4583. It is
impossible to say for sure, from the air photographs alone, if the
enclosures relate to the Early Medieval Cemetery and they may not be
contemporary. (Morph No. LI.742.1.1-3.1)
This description is based on data from the RCHME MORPH2 database.
(19) |