Earliest Iron Age Socketed Axes: Discoveries and Rediscoveries in Furness

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EARLIEST IRON AGE SOCKETED AXES: DISCOVERIES AND REDISCOVERIES IN FURNESS

Dot Boughton

Abstract Since the launch of the Portable Antiquities Scheme in 1997 and the start of meticulous recording of metalwork found by metal detectorists, our knowledge of prehistoric metalwork in Lancashire and Cumbria has vastly improved. Recently, five new Earliest Iron Age (c. 800–600BC) socketed axes from Cumbria were reported: three axes from a small dispersed hoard found near Ulverston and two axes from the original hoard of Earliest Iron Age axes from Skelmore Heads, Furness. These two axes were known in the early 1900s, but became separated from the hoard in the earlier twentieth century. In 2014 they were reported to Finds Liaison Officers in Hampshire and Cumbria as stray finds, but were traced back to their original find-spot in Cumbria, where the current owners’ family originates from.

Introduction Between 2011 and 2014 three new and two old finds of socketed axes from the Furness peninsula were reported to Finds Liaison Officers of the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS). The Ulverston Hoard is a small assemblage of three axes and a small piece of casting waste (Figure 1, nos.1, 3 and 4), while the two socketed axes from Skelmore Heads had been described initially by Harper- Gaythorpe in 1903 (Figure 2; Harper-Gaythorpe 1903a, 1903b). They had been separated from a hoard of six in the earlier twentieth century and their whereabouts were unknown until now. Due to the importance of these hoards for the Early Iron Age metalwork assemblage of North West England, these two hoards will be the focus of this research.

The Ulverston Hoard In autumn 2011 two local metal detectorists were on farmland near Ulverston, not far from the prehistoric settlement site of Skelmore Heads. They discovered three socketed axes and a small piece of metal-working residue in two adjacent fields (Figure 1, nos. 1, 3 and 4). Though not found in direct association, the artefacts were undoubtedly deposited together in antiquity but subsequently dispersed by the plough and animal activity. The finders and landowner reported the hoard as potential Treasure under the Treasure Act 1996 (Treasure Number: 2012T491; PAS database ID: LANCUM-3F7550) and later donated it to the people of Furness. The hoard is now in the Dock Museum (Barrow-in-Furness) where it is on permanent display.

The Ulverston axes are all of the Sompting type and conventionally dated to the British Earliest Iron Age (c. 800–600BC). Two of the axes (Figure 1, nos. 3 and 4) are decorated on each face with a central rib terminating in a pellet-in-circlet with a hanging triangle to the left and right. The points of the triangles are also terminating by a pellet-in-circlet. This decoration is rare but not unique and can be found on two other socketed axes: one specimen from Dunnichen, Tayside (Figure 4; Boughton 2015, no. 1245) and the other from Skelmore Heads, Cumbria (Figure 1, no. 2). The latter was found in 1902 with five other socketed axes of the same type but different decoration in a limestone fissure near Skelmore Heads (Cowper 1905; Collingwood 1926). The hoard from Skelmore Heads has been lost, unfortunately, and up until 2014 only two axes survived in museum collections: one in the Dock Museum, Barrow-in-Furness (Figure 1, no. 2; Museum Accession Number: Dock Museum 5045.03), and the other in Lancaster City Museum’s H.S. Swainson- Cowper collection, currently on loan to and on display at the Ruskin Museum, Coniston (Figure 1, no.5; Museum Accession Number: LANLM: 1938.13.28) (Boughton 2015, nos. 193 and 197). 59

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Figure 1 Five axes from the Ulverston and Skelmore Heads Hoards

The Dock Museum’s axe from Skelmore Heads shares not only the decoration but also the dimensions of the two larger Ulverston axes. The decoration on all three axes is exactly the same and after comparing casting flaws and the slight curvature of the ribs and the sides of the triangles it is suggested here that the three axes were made in the same mould or cast using the same mould template. Local casting of Early Iron Age decorated socketed axes is further supported by the discovery of the small piece of casting waste in the Ulverston Hoard. This suggestion may be 60

Contrebis 2018 v36 confirmed by a future metallurgical analysis. However, different surface colours, hues and surface texture further suggest that different alloys were in use. When comparing the surfaces and details of decoration of the three axes, one of the new axes from near Ulverston stands out (Fig. 1, no. 3): it has a rough surface, a silvery patina and it is also slightly heavier and chunkier. It was not finished, nor was it ever used for chopping. It is thus possible that this axe was not meant for use as a cutting or chopping tool but was a tool for display, ritual or ritual deposition, displaying a very unusual, shiny silvery colour. It is the first of these silvery-looking axes (that is, a copper-alloy with a tin content of c. 20 per cent) to have been found in the North West. Similar (albeit much smaller and lighter) socketed axes with a silvery surface and a high tin-content have been found in hoards from Dorset (Langton Matravers), Wiltshire (Hindon) and Norfolk (East Rudham) (Boughton 2015, nos. 226–598, 845–886 and 1354–1387). They, too, were unfinished and deposited in an as-cast condition. There are no other examples from Wales, Central or Northern England or Scotland.

Figure 2 Harper-Gaythorpe’s original drawings of the six Skelmore Heads axes, 1902 (courtesy of Cumbria Archives and The Mail, Barrow-in-Furness)

The Skelmore Heads Hoard In 1903 Harper-Gaythorpe reported that in June 1902 six axes were found by a workman, James Newby, while quarrying (‘blasting’) limestone in a field called Little Cow Close on Skelmore Heads, near Urswick (Harper-Gaythorpe 1903a, 310). It was also reported in the local newspaper (Fig. 2, inset). Harper-Gaythorpe made meticulous notes at the time of the discovery, including drawings, rubbings and photographs of the axes, as well as a detailed description, drawing and map of the find-spot (Fig. 2). Harper-Gaythorpe reports that the axes were lying together in a limestone fissure, about three inches wide, and the root of an ash tree growing in the fissure bears an impression of one of the axes. Both this axe and the tree root are now in the Dock Museum, Barrow-in-Furness (Harper-Gaythorpe 1903a, 310). He also reported that one of the axes (now in the Swainson-Cowper collection in Lancaster) was exchanged by the finder for a bottle of liquor and was now in the possession of Mr. Thompson of the General Burgoyne Inn, Urswick (Fig. 1, no. 5; Harper-Gaythorpe 1903a, 310). It can be surmised that because of the change of ownership and 61

Contrebis 2018 v36 uncertain future of this particular axe at the time, Harper-Gaythorpe decided to pay particular attention to its description and measurements.

Figure 3 Harper-Gaythorpe’s original photograph of five of the six axes from Skelmore Heads (courtesy of Cumbria Archives and The Mail, Barrow-in-Furness)

Figure 4 Socketed axe from Dunnichen, Tayside (Scotland) 62

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We are fortunate that Harper-Gaythorpe made such exemplary notes about the hoard because in the following decades the two (plain) axes were lost in the early twentieth century and the other two (decorated) axes were thought to have been stolen from a temporary museum store in the 1960s or 1970s. The two plain axes were presumed lost until, in 2014, a finder reported a socketed axe, presumably from his ancestral home in Cumbria, to the Finds Liaison Officer for Hampshire, stating that his brother, in Lincolnshire, had another. The author was the Finds Liaison Officer for Cumbria at the time and was just finishing her PhD thesis on Early Iron Age socketed axes when the email was received from the colleague in Hampshire, Katie Hinds. The author recognised the axes immediately from Harper-Gaythorpe’s photograph (Fig. 3): they were the two plain axes from the Skelmore Heads Hoard. Both brothers, Dr John Parker and Mr David Parker, brought in their axes for recording on the PAS database and they are now recorded as HAMP-5723E3 and LANCUM- A9ECA6 (Figs. 5 and 6; Boughton 2015, nos. 195 and 199).

Earliest Iron Age hoards in Cumbria The nine axes from the Skelmore Heads and Ulverston hoards are all Sompting-type axes of the Kingston variant. This axe type was first described by Colin Burgess (1971) and sub-classified further in the author’s PhD thesis (Boughton 2015, 104ff). In Central and Southern England and South Wales Sompting axes are typically associated with metalwork dating from the British Earliest Iron Age (c. 800–600BC) and, importantly, are very early iron objects – hence their reclassification as Earliest Iron Age rather than Late Bronze Age (Boughton 2015). They are part of the Llyn Fawr metalwork assemblage, named after the hoard of cast copper-alloy and wrought iron objects from a small mountain lake near Rhigos, Vale of Glamorgan (Crawford and Wheeler 1921; Fox and Hyde 1939; Savory 1976; Savory 1980). The hoard from Llyn Fawr contained rib-and-pellet decorated socketed axes, but more elaborately decorated axes are known from Earliest Iron Age hoards from the Thames Valley (Kingston-on-Thames), Sussex (Eastbourne, Sompting and Ferring), Scotland (Tillicoultry) and, of course, from Cumbria (Skelmore Heads) (Evans 1881; Budgen 1920; Curwen 1948; Curwen 1954, Grinsell 1931, Huth 1997; O’Connor 2007).

The examples of socketed axes discussed in Burgess’s 1971 paper include three single finds from Yorkshire (Seamer Carr, Cayton Carr and Broughton, near Malton) and the fifteen heavier axes from the eponymous Sompting hoard, East Sussex (Curwen 1948, plate XX, 5 and 6). Following Burgess’ definition, Sompting axes have a heavy and pronounced profile and their loops tend to be of moderate size with some having a distinctive spurred base (e.g. Fig. 5). The sockets are usually of sub-rectangular or ‘back-to-front’ shape (Burgess 1971, 268), a typological characteristic that we can also find on the axes from Ulverston and Skelmore Heads. Sub-rectangular sockets are more common in the Earliest Iron Age while rectangular sockets, aligned with the blade, can be found on the large majority of Late Bronze Age socketed axes. While axes of the preceding Late Bronze Age are generally plain, Burgess suggested that one of the main characteristics of Sompting axes is their elaborate decoration (Burgess 1971, 267). The wealth of patterns, both simple and more elaborate, is striking and cannot be matched on axes of the Ewart Park metalwork assemblage of the preceding Late Bronze Age (c. 900–800BC). Apart from plain and simple ribbed axes (with three, four or five ribs), there are rib-and-pellet decorated axes (one, two, three or more ribs), rib-and-circlet, triple- rib-and-circlet, rib-and-circlets connected with ribs forming M’s and Ω’s, empty boxes, or boxes with a central X. The hoard from Ulverston contains three axes and only one (the smallest and most reshaped/used one) is undecorated. However, undecorated axes of Sompting type are known, for example from the River Thames at Kew, London (British Museum Accession Number: WG1744) and also from the Tower Hill Hoard, Oxfordshire (Coombs et al. 2003). This means that even though Sompting axes are usually highly decorated, plain examples are known and can be identified according to their weight, size and shape of the mouth and blade.

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Figure 5 Rediscovered socketed axe from Skelmore Heads, PAS Finds ID: HAMP-5723E3

Figure 6 Rediscovered socketed axe from Skelmore Heads, PAS Finds ID: LANCUM-A9ECA6

The two decorated axes from Ulverston show, on each face, a central rib terminating in a pellet-in- circlet with a hanging triangle to its left and right. The points of the triangles are also terminating in 64

Contrebis 2018 v36 a pellet-in-circlet. This decoration is not unique. It can be found on two other socketed axes. One of these axes is part of the older hoard from Skelmore Heads (Cowper 1905; Collingwood 1926) and the other is a single find from Dunnichen, Tayside (Fig. 4; Coles 1962, 67; Schmidt and Burgess 1981, no. 1585). Even though the axes from Skelmore Heads and Ulverston could not be directly compared with the axe from Tayside (which is in the British Museum), the similarity in decoration leaves no doubt that they were made from the same mould template or possibly even cast in the same mould.

Cumbria in the Earliest Iron Age Although the Skelmore Heads and Ulverston hoards were found close to the known prehistoric site of Skelmore Heads, it is not clear if there was contemporary activity in and around the hillfort and whether the deposition of the two hoards was in any way related. Excavations revealed at least two phases of occupation on Skelmore Heads, but objects associated with either phase are scarce and dating of the timber palisade and subsequent stone-banked enclosure is difficult (Powell 1963, 10; Barrowclough 2010, 187). Some have argued that the timber enclosure dates from the Neolithic period while others have suggested a Bronze Age date for the timber structures and the Later Iron Age for the stone enclosure, but there is not enough supporting evidence for either theory (Brown 1996, 13; Corcoran in Powell 1963, 17–20). There is certainly no evidence for on-site metal- working and if the axes from the two hoards as well as the axe from Dunnichen (Tayside, Scotland) were manufactured in the vicinity of the hillfort, it seems more likely that it was cast off-site.

There is evidence from Scotland and the South of England, however, that Earliest Iron Age axe hoards were sometimes deposited on or close to earlier prehistoric sites, for example stone circles, burnt mounts or settlements (O’Connor 2007, 76). This means that if the first timber structures at Skelmore Heads predate the deposition of the axes it could be argued that the axes were manufactured and deposited in its vicinity because of the hillfort’s significance as a prehistoric monument or ancestral site.

Conclusion With the recent discovery of the Ulverston Hoard and the rediscovery of two axes from the Skelmore Heads Hoard the number of known Earliest Iron Age socketed axes from the Furness peninsula has now increased from two to seven, with two socketed axes still missing. However, thanks to Harper-Gaythorpe’s meticulous study of the original Skelmore Heads hoard well over a century ago, we have enough evidence to suggest that the Furness peninsula was a significant place for both metalworking and metalwork deposition in the Earliest Iron Age. Bronze Age and Iron Age metalwork depositions in Cumbria are extremely rare compared to regions in Southern and Eastern England, but two previously reported Late Bronze Age hoards from the Rampside area strongly suggest that prehistoric metalwork deposition in Cumbria was prevalent in the Furness peninsula and rarer elsewhere in the county (Portable Antiquities Scheme Finds IDs: LANCUM-4118A0 and LANCUM-428850; Treasure Numbers: 2014T205 and 2013T598)

Acknowledgements I would like to thank Sabine Skae (Dock Museum, Barrow-in-Furness), Tim Padley (Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery Trust, Carlisle), Vicky Slowe (Ruskin Museum, Coniston) and Heather Dowler and Caroline Wilkinson (Lancaster City Museum) for letting me study their Early Iron Age axes and take them away for illustration. I would also like to thank the Research Committee of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society for generously supporting the project. Dan Elsworth of Greenlane Archaeology Ltd (Ulverston), Glen Lang and Susan Benson from Barrow Record Office have been invaluable throughout the desk-based research and I am extremely grateful for all their help. I would also like to thank Susan Benson (Cumbria Archivist Service) and Heather Horner (The Mail) for allowing me to 65

Contrebis 2018 v36 reproduce the images. I am indebted to Dr John Parker and Mr David Parker for reporting their socketed axes to their local FLOs. Four down, two to go…

Author profile Dot Boughton originates from Germany and completed her undergraduate studies at the Freie Universität Berlin in 1999. She then moved to England, following the trail of her forebears, the Anglo-Saxons. Between 1999 and 2001, she studied Anglo-Saxon metalwork during the Migration Period (AD 375–520) at Oxford and completed an MSt and an MPhil. In 2015 she completed her PhD on British Early Iron Age socketed axes (800–600 BC) at the University of Central Lancashire. She currently works at Oxford Archaeology North in Lancaster. Contact: [email protected].

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