A HISTORY OF LEICESTERSHIRE There is reason to believe that the art of working iron, and the know- ledge of its immense superiority over bronze, were brought hither by a tribe or division of the great Celtic family, known as the Brythons, a name which is perpetuated in that of the people who still flourish in these islands. Gaulish and other continental influences are clearly shown in the arts and industries of the people of the early Iron Age in Britain, and it is this interesting fact, perhaps, which gives the chief importance to the discoveries in Leicestershire now to be described. In this county there have been found several objects characteristic of the late Celtic period, and of the greatest archaeological importance. The first to be recorded, both on account of rarity and interest, are the remains of the bronze mounts of a wooden bucket found at Mountsorrel' in what has been considered a Roman well. Articles of this class and period are so very rare that only two had been previously known as having been found in England, 1 * namely, one found at Marlborough, and one found in the late Celtic cemetery at Aylesford. Both of these are considered by Dr. Arthur Evans to be foreign productions, and in both we find ornamentation of anthromorphic and zoomorphic character. In the case of the Aylesford bucket the terminals of the handle by which it is attached to the bucket are human heads. In the Marlborough bucket there are also human heads- arranged in pairs. In the Mountsorrel example, however, and also in that next to be described, the handle attachments are in the form of bulls' heads. Zoomorphic forms of this character are rare, but a bull's head cast in solid bronze was found at Ham Hill, Somerset, 15 in which is displayed great artistic skill, although convention is carried almost to the verge of caricature. The vertical bronze straps of the Mountsorrel bucket are decorated with a debased form of spiral scroll-work in relief, interrupted at intervals by raised rings. The main portion of the bucket, which has been restored, was of course composed of wooden staves. The handle is of particularly good workmanship, and consists of elegant bead and reel moulding. Another bucket, or rather the broken remains of the bronze mounts and some fragments of the wooden staves of one, were found between Twyford and Burrough Hill, Leicestershire, in association, it is said, with a socketed spear-head of iron. The fragments of wooden staves are fairly well preserved, and amongst the various pieces of metal is the bronze head of a bull from which project the ears and horns of the animal. This was manifestly a part of the attachment of the handle to the bucket, and it furnishes an interesting parallel to the similar, if not quite identical, form on the Mountsorrel specimen just described. In general character the Leicestershire buckets are clearly of later date, and of more debased art, than the examples found in Kent and Wiltshire ; and there is good reason to believe that they may be of native British work r manship. The curious bronze object found at High Cross is another characteristic relic of the late Celtic or early Iron Age. It consists of two disks of metal connected by a tube, and may possibly have served as the ornamental boss of the nave of a chariot wheel. Examples of these objects have been found 14 J. Romilly Allen, F.S.A., Celtic Art in Pagan and Christian Times, 1 16. 15 Free. Soc. Antiq. xxi, 133. 172
