Page:VCH Kent 1.djvu/388

 A HISTORY OF KENT All Hallow's, Hoo, and the Isle of Harty : a sickle at Marden : celts at All Hallow's, Hoo ; Canterbury ; Bronze Knife from Isle of Harty. Dover ; Minster (Thanet) ; Sittingbourne ; Watering- bury ; and Wye : pal- staves at All Hallow's, Hoo ; Ashford ; Blean ; Buckland (near Dover) ; Chatham, etc. ; whilst skin- ning-knives, pins, rings, and numerous other mis- from Marden and the more cellaneous objects, have been recorded important bronze hoards in the county. Hoards of bronze, comprising rough masses of metal, or old, broken or worn-out implements, are of the highest archaeological value, because they furnish important evidence as to the working of metal in prehistoric times, and help to indicate the extent and direction of trading operations, the purposes and uses of the tools and implements of man in the Bronze Age, and other equally interesting subjects. Kent has furnished six or seven examples of hoards of this kind, some of them being remarkable for their numerous and varied contents. The following are succinct particulars of the more important Kentish hoards : — All Hallow's, Hoo. In 1873 some agricultural labourers found at Home Wood Farm a hoard containing eighteen objects, mainly socketed and looped celts, a knife, a sword-hilt, and a very rare form of skinning knife, and composed, according to the account given by Mr. Humphrey Wickham,i of pure copper. Lumps of metal weighing nearly 8 lb. were found with the implements. Another hoard was discovered in 1875 about 3 ft. below the surface of the ground at Little Coombe Farm,^ on the border of the parishes of All Hallow's and St. Mary, also in the Hundred of Hoo. It consisted of twenty-seven objects mostly in the form of broken socketed Sword-hilt (damaged) found at All Hallow's, Hoo. Knife found at All Hallow's, Hoo. celts. These articles, weighing in all 7J lb., were accompanied by lumps of unmanufactured metal of about an equal weight. The implements, as in the case of the earlier find, are said to have been composed of pure copper. Ebbs Fleet, Minster, Thanet. A bronze hoard of great importance was found here in January 1893.' It contained upwards of 190 separate implements, and fragments of bronze, and weighed 160 lb. or more. The chief contents were portions of dagger, swords, and celts, and perfect examples of socketed celts, palstaves, spear-heads, sickle, hammer, and » Arch. Cant. xi. 124-5. » Op. cit. 123-4. ^ Ptoc. Soc. Antiq. (ser. 2) xiv. 309-11, and xv. 138. 322