A Saxon cemetery was accidently discovered by labourers digging for gravel. The details were communicated to T Bateman by Mr Parker of Nottingham. The burials were c 2ft below surface and accompanied by Saxon weapons and urns in profusion. Only a few of the finds were preserved, in the Nottm Mechanics Institute Museum or in possession of Archdeacon Browne of Cotgrave. They include ... 3 varieties of urn, a beehive quern, a weight, a lock, bronze attachments for bucket handles, cruciform brooches, buckles and many beads of glass, porcelain and amber. 2 beads were in Bateman's possession. (1)
Excavations in area of gravel pit ... the whole had been destroyed and nothing remained to be discovered but potsherds broken from vessels of the Ro era and fragments of animal bones. (2)
Apparently includes cemetery in "barrows whose elevation is so slight as to be barely perceptible". (3)
3 cruciform brooches and 15 glass beads in Bateman collection in SCM. G Parker in letter to Bateman in 1847 says that the site was in a gravel pit near Holme, 5 miles on the Nottm-Newark road. Pit had been "all levelled up". Rev T Peach states that the site was in a gravel bed, near Mr Sanday's in Holme lane. (8)
16 objects in BM - a mixed inhumation and cremation cemetery - as shown in (1), except for "lock". All bought from a dealer. (9)
Houldsworth has given 2 sitings for cemetery, based on attempts to locate Mr Sanday's, who was a farmer with fields in the area. No certain site is known. Gravel pit to N has recently produced Ro pottery, also said locally to have produced "Ro gold vessels worth hundreds of pounds" (derived from money offered for cemetery finds ?). (10)
Museum exhibits from Mechanics Inst went to Wollaton Hall after a fire in 1870s - nothing there or at NCM now. (11)
Objects displayed at BM include ... a very large cruciform fibula. (12)
Suggests site at SK 630380. (14)
Above grid ref based on info in (8) and filled in pit on (15).
The majority of artefacts belong to C6. … brooch typology in keeping with Anglian forms and distributions. (16)
See L8012 for Ro items.

Data Held (Document). SNT2647.

OS Card, Parish File

<1> British Archaeoloigcal Assoc, 1848, JBAA, pp 297 - (Published document). SNT188.

<2> British Archaeological Assoc, 1853, JBAA, pp 109 - (Published document). SNT190.

<3> Bowman W, 1851, Reliq Antiq Ebor, p 8 (Published document). SNT515.

<4> Collectanea Antiqua eds, 1852, Collectanea Antiqua, p 22 (Published document). SNT137.

<5> Soc of Ants of London, 1857, Archaeologia, p 471 (Published document). SNT94.

<6> VCH, 1906, Notts, pp 195-6, 202-3 (Published document). SNT1383.

<7> Thoroton Society, 1954, TTS, p 5 (Published document). SNT368.

<8> Bartlett J, 30/07/1951, letter (Personal comment). SNT457.

<9> Bruce Mitford RLS, 17/07/1953, letter (Personal comment). SNT530.

<10> Houldsworth HO, 1960, Hon Corr (Personal comment). SNT790.

<11> Woodhouse WC, 1960, Pers Comm (Personal comment). SNT1438.

<12> Woodhouse WC, 1961, Pers Comm (Personal comment). SNT1439.

<13> Meaney A, 1964, A Gazetteer of Early Anglo-Saxon Burial Sites, p 200 (Published document). SNT913.

<14> MacCormick A , Pers Comm (Personal comment). SNT895.

<15> OS, 1914, 1:2500, County Series 1914 (Map). SNT1023.

Other Refs: 42/12

<16> Smeeton, E L, 1987, The Material from the Early Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Holme Pierrepont, Nottinghamshire, and the Site in its Local Context, p 25 (Unpublished document). SNT2125.