A Bronze Cauldron from Sompting, Sussex

Extract

During the autumn of 1946 a hoard of bronzes was discovered during excavation for foundations in the bottom of a down-land valley in the parish of Sompting, near Worthing. The site is a point approximately 300 ft. north-east of Hill Barn and 1,500 ft. south-west of the south-west edge of Lancing Ring, and is on property belonging to Hill Barn Nurseries. The bronzes were unearthed by a mechanical excavator at a depth of about 5 ft. in a valley-bottom accumulation of brown clayey mould. How much of this material is natural hill-wash and how much the result of cultivation of the valley in ancient and modern times it would be difficult to say. The depth at which the bronzes were found suggests that some of the soil may have been ploughed down into the valley bottom at a later period.