ANGLO-SAXON OXFORDSHIRE

WHEATLEY ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY

The Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Castle Hill Field in Wheatley was discovered in 1883 when labourers were digging for stone. They found twenty-four skeletons but these were not recorded. The landowner, Henry Gale, recovered a number of finds, including shield bosses, spearheads and knives. These are now all held in the Ashmolean Museum.

Henry Gale discovered a further fifteen burials and by 1894 thirty-three more graves had been excavated by Edward Evans of the Ashmolean Museum. Of the burials Evans excavated, twenty-three had grave-goods. Several of the burials had only a few objects in the graves, in fact seven only had a knife. Thus not all the burials were richly furnished in this cemetery, although a number were very richly furnished. The finds from Evans' excavation are also held by the Ashmolean Museum.

Objects found in the grave of a woman (grave 27) in 1883 (Click HERE to find out more about this burial)	Record sheet of finds from graves 14 and 26 by E.T. Leeds (Click on the image to see a larger version)

In 1967 two further burials were discovered. The finds from all these burials date from the late fifth to early seventh centuries.

REFERENCES:

E.T. Leeds (1917) [A paper on an Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Wheatley, Oxfordshire]. Proceedings of the Society Antiquaries 2nd ser., Vol. 29, p48-65.

A. MacGregor and E. Bolick (1993) A Summary Catalogue of the Anglo-Saxon Collections (Non- Ferrous Metals), BAR British Series 230.