Page:VCH Rutland 1.djvu/146

 A HISTORY OF RUTLAND present only three burial sites are known that must have been close to habitations of the new-comers who were destined to change the name of Britain ; and these sites correspond to the majority in Northamptonshire, not only as regards geological formation, but also in the character of the finds. Without crediting the early English with geological knowledge in a scientific sense, we can imagine that before the days of systematic drainage and forest-clearing, the superficial indications of the subsoil were clearer than they are to-day, and there would be a marked distinction between the two main formations of the county. The line of demarcation would pass north and south practically through the centre, and it may therefore be not merely an accident that the three discoveries in the county have been made on this line. North of Burley the belt of Northampton Sand is, on the average, three quarters of a mile wide ; and while the Market Overton and Cottesmore sites are in the centre of this belt, the sand-pits between Edith Weston and North LufFenham, which have proved so rich in Anglo-Saxon remains, are at the junction of the Lincolnshire Oolite and Northampton Sand, where the latter is somewhat narrower than further north. These coincidences justify the hope that further discoveries of the kind will be made in or adjoining this belt, and the efforts of local antiquaries should be more specially directed to this particular outcrop, in which agricultural operations, not to mention ironstone working, may at any moment give the clue to another cemetery or settlement of the early Anglo-Saxon Period. It should, however, be pointed out that favourable situations elsewhere in the county that have not been disturbed by digging for ironstone or sand may still retain many traces of the Anglo-Saxons, and it would be strange indeed if the fertile vale of Catmose did not attract these early settlers. That the Lias formation was not purposely avoided is proved by the fact that in the adjoining county of Leicester most of the finds have been in the clay area continuous with that of Rutland. Exhaustive papers on the North Luffenham finds were read by Mr. Crowther-Beynon, F.S.A., before the Leicestershire Architectural and Archaeological Society in 1902 and 1904,^ and the following cannot claim to be more than a summary of his communications, together with a few references to discoveries elsewhere in England, which will throw some light on the affinities of the earliest Teutonic inhabitants of the county. The cemetery, as it has been proved to be, occupies the brow of one of the ridges which constitute the leading physical feature of the county, at an altitude of about three hundred and fifty feet, and commands its surroundings. The nearest road is called Weston Gate, which has given its name to Weston Gate Field, where the Northampton Sand was first dug many years ago, the land then belonging to Lord Aveland, father of the Earl of Ancaster, and the late Mr. W. R. Morris. Any mounds that may have existed to mark the graves would have been obliterated by the plough ; but as some of the graves discovered were only about one foot apart, it is probable that they were originally marked by little hillocks of earth (not 'barrows' in the ordinary sense) such as are to be seen in graveyards ^ Assoc. Arch. Soc. Rep. xxvi, pt. i, 250; xxvii, 220; Rut. Mag. and Co. Hist. Rcc. i (1903-4), 87, 116. 152. A cinerary urn 6 in. high is in Leicester Museum. 96