ANGLO-SAXON OXFORDSHIRE

WALLINGFORD ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY

Between 1894 and 1910 ten or eleven graves were found near St. Johns Road in Wallingford, whilst a new school was being built. From 1924 to 1938 a further twenty-four graves and six cremations were uncovered in the vicinity of the 'Pavilion', south of the ramparts of the old town. After 1936 Captain C. Musgrove supervised the excavation of most of the burials and deposited the finds with the Ashmolean Museum.

Mr Snow, owner of the site, with the grave of an adult woman (grave no. 12) during excavations in the 1937

The graves at Wallingford contained a variety of finds including some fine pottery vessels, several strings of beads and a number of brooches. When compared with other sites, the brooches have parallels with finds from Anglo-Saxon cemeteries in the Upper Thames valley, including sites in Oxfordshire, namely Frilford, Filkins and Wheatley.

Grave 22 as excavated in 1938.	One of the six cremations during excavation.

From the finds, it appears the cemetery was in use from the fifth to the later sixth centuries.

REFERENCES:

E.T. Leeds (1938) "An Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Wallingford, Berkshire", Berkshire Archaeological Journal, 42, pp 93-101.

A.L. Meaney (1964) A Gazetteer of Anglo-Saxon Burial Sites (London).

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