Three bronze implements from the Edgebold Brickyard, Meole Brace, Shropshire

Extract

Among the collections of the Rev. C. H. Drinkwater, who died in 1923 after holding the living of St. George's, Shrewsbury, since 1872, were two looped palstaves and a trunnion celt (fig. 1), labelled as ‘3 Primitive Weapons found in the clay (15 ft.) in a brickfield, Hanwood Road, May 1900’. These were all in rather a rough condition, the surfaces being much chipped and in parts worn down to a grey-brown core with purple stains; they are encrusted with powdery blue-green metal, covered with a fairly glossy yellow-brown patina, of which considerable portions remain with traces of soil adhering. The chisel is in two pieces, broken about 10 mm. above the lugs; it is 156 mm. long, 24 mm. wide at the cutting edge and 35 mm. across the trunnions, with an average thickness of 8 mm.: unlike the specimen from Broxton and the two Welsh examples figured and described by Mr. Hemp, the ends do not seem to have been sharpened to a fine edge (though possibly the bluntness of the three implements under consideration may be due in part to the disintegrating effect of the soil on the metal): the section is roughly oblong, and the trunnions are squarish with rounded angles: the weight is 4⅜ oz. This implement is so far unique in Shropshire, but small broad-edged tanged chisels have been found, one at Brogyntyn, near Oswestry, with a leaf-shaped sword (type G) and a gouge, another (broken) in the late Broadward Hoard, from the extreme south of the county on the Herefordshire border.