Special Objects
1. Anchors
About the year 1847, a fisherman brought to light an object, which he and his fellows regarded as remarkably curious. It was like a portion of a tree of white sandstone, stuck full of shells, except that two bars crossed it at the top and bottom, of the same material. It was nearly the thickness of a mans waist, and of course was very heavy. When brought to the village of Hoylake in the vicinity of Meols, it was apparently an object of great curiosity to the locals there; and many were the guesses made respecting its name and purpose. By some accident, however, it was broken right across, and the fracture revealed a square bar of iron in the centre, with a vast accretion of sand and rust forming a thick coating around it. It was then observed that the longer of the two cross-bars had something like knobs at its extremities; and it was thus at once seen it was an anchor, entombed in sand which had itself assisted in indurating into stone.
Two other anchors had been dredged up in like manner and were both preserved in Hoylake. It is not clear to me whether these still exist after such a long age. Maybe someone in the locality that has any knowlege of their whereabouts would please let me know. It would be dangerous to offer a surmise respecting the age of any of them, for the general form of anchor has been known for a long time; and there was nothing, in either or the encrustation, to assist in fixing a date. The crossbar at the top was of iron, not of wood, and, instead of being straight formed the arc of the circle, like the head or portion with the flukes.
2. Buckets
There was a species of wooden vessels, which were known to our ancestors, for which the modern name, bucket, seems most appropriate. There is no reason to beleive that it was not used for ordinary domestic purposes, in which it possessed great advantage over earthenware vessels.
There was one from Enverman in Normandy, which showed a general shape. It is very unlike ours of today in that it had straight sides.
In that one there was a moveable drop handle ornamented, and the metal portion to which it was hinged on the body of the vessel was also ornamented, both with floreated extremities and indented marks similar to the ring and dot of the Saxons. In June, 1760, a fragment of a similar object was discovered in one of the Kentish graves by Faussett, which he beleived was part of a scutum or square shield, the wood-work being less than a half inch thick.
He described it as "a little concave in the manner of an half cylinder, inward, that is, from top to bottom, and was covered all over the outside with a very thin plate of brass." Another bucket, in a condition of tolerable completeness, with metalic fastenings and ornaments, and a hook on the inside was discovered in the 17 or 18th centuries in Wilbraham, Cambridgeshire.
In Wright's Essays, I., 153 for those who are able to view this remarkable volume it mentions a curious example of hasty conclusion. The metalic rim of a bucket, with triangular ornaments on the top, pointing downwards, was actually supposed to have been a crown, and was engraved in connection with a skull on which it was placed. Only one object of this class had been found on the Cheshire coast, and it contained no metal whatever; it was in the form of a pail, narrowing at the bottom, and about five inches in diameter, midway from top to bottom. It consisted of eight staves, to which the wooden hoops where attached by pegs; each stave was very thin near the bottom, and the lower extremity presented a little ledge or step inwards, about half an inch high, on which the bottom rested.Two opposite ears projected to the extent of two and a quarter inches, each of which presented a shoulder for a wooden lid and there were indications of very long use.
It possessed proofs of skill and workmanship, though in some respects it was very unlike similar implements known in the 18th century. Our Mr Wright suggested that one use of these vessels among our forefathers may have been to carry in the ale and mead, or the wine into the hall, to be served out into the drinking-cups of the family or guests.
3. Bronze Bowl
Vessels of this kind were also frequently found, having probably been used to contain food upon the table. From the fact that solder is used at the handles, when they possess any, they would be ill suited for standing excessive heat, and some are enamelled and otherwise ornamented so as to show they were never intended to be used that way. The Saxon bowls were mostly quite plain, and formed of thin hammered metal, and some of them, as in one or two of the Faussett collection, had been carefully patched and repaired.
One of these Saxon bowls was found on the Cheshire coast; it was a very interesting specimen, apparently of pure copper, and had been forcibly hammered into its original shape. It had sustained a little injury apparently by coming into contact with sharp objects, but was, on the whole, in a fair state of preservation.
Unlike some of the Kentish examples, it had no stamp impressed upon the bottom, nor any distiguishing marks whatever. As a contrast to the simplicity of workmanship and form of this one, I may refer to one of the beautiful household vessels of ancient Ireland. It was nineteen inches in diameter at the top, a foot-deep, and sixty-seven inches in girth. It was composed of numerous pieces of thin bronze, each averaging three and quarter inches broad, but becoming shorter as they approach the bottom.
The plates had been hammered, and they were united by rivets about half and inch apart, with beautiful sharp conical heads. Some rivets were designed to be ornamental only, as all of them to some extent, for they existed in places where there were not needed to join the metal layers together. In the bottom they were large and plain. The lip, or upper margin, which was two and a half inches broad, was ornamented by corrugation, and the outer edge of it, next to the solid hoop, had a double line of perforations. There were solid bronze handles, about the size of armillae, attached to the rim by strong brazen staples.
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