Transcript

of

Note 12 (Bronze Spear Head)

In: W. Pengelly. Memoranda, Transactions of the Devonshire Association, 1875, Vol VII, pp. 199-200.

Prepared by Michael Steer

A bronze spearhead was found about 20 yards away from the River Teign, on the left bank of the river, at Christmas 1874. It lay about 20 feet below ground surface near the base of an accumulation of stones, clay and sand known as the 'Head'. The article, from a copy of a rare and much sought-after journal can be downloaded from the Internet Archive. Google has sponsored the digitisation of books from several libraries. These books, on which copyright has expired, are available for free educational and research use, both as individual books and as full collections to aid researchers.

12. About Christmas, 1874, the workmen engaged at the Zitherixon Clay Works of Messrs. Watts, Blake, Bearne, & Co., in the parish of Teigngrace, between Newton Abbot and the village of Kingsteignton, on the left bank of the Teign and about 20 yards from that river, found the fine bronze spear-head which, through the kindness of Mr. Watts and his partners, to whom I am indebted for the facts in these memoranda, I have the pleasure of exhibiting to the meeting, and which is represented by fig. 1 in the accompanying plate on the scale of '425 linear, or four inches and a quarter to ten inches. It lay about 20 feet below the surface of the ground, and from 12 to 15 feet below the general level of the surface of the adjacent river, in black mud, near the base of that accumulation of angular, sub-angular, and rounded stones, mixed with clay and sand, locally known as the "Head," and about 3 feet above the deposit of clay for which the district is so famous. The implement measures 10.95 inches in extreme length,. 1.8 inch in greatest breath, and 1 inch in diameter at the end prepared for the shaft or staff. When it was discovered, a portion of the wooden staff, but very much decayed, occupied the socket prepared for it and projected about 2 inches. This staff appears to have been held in its place by a nail or pin passing through a hole in the socket Its edges are somewhat jagged here and there, and it weighs 7.8 ounces avoirdupois. W. P.