Treasures of the Peak District: The Galley Lowe Garnet Necklace

This fantastic small necklace is housed in the Sheffield’s Western Park Museum for the simple reason that the tumulus in which it was found was excavated by Thomas Bateman and thus entered his museum at Lomberdale Hall. Some years after his death the museum contents were sold to the Sheffield Corporation, by his son and thus became part of Sheffield Museums’ catalogue.

The Galley Lowe Necklace from Museums Sheffield (2012). Original caption reads: 

Necklace

Date Made/Found: Around 675 AD; Previous owner: Previously owned by Thomas Bateman , British, 1821 – 1861. Material and Medium: Gold and garnet. Dimensions: Length 11.5cm. Department: Archaeology. Accession Number: J93.707

The Museums Sheffield (2012) website provides this description of the circumstances of the find: “Anglo-Saxon gold and garnet necklace from Galley Low, Derbyshire. This necklace is made of eleven gold mounted garnets and three gold ornaments, two round and one spiral. The garnets have convex or flat tops. They are backed with gold foil to give a richer shade of red. The gold mounting has been finely worked with pellets and lines. It is a very nice example of gold and garnet jewellery. The necklace was found by Thomas Bateman in 1843 in the larger barrow at Galley Low. It was in a disturbed area at the top of the barrow. This disturbed area contained human bones and objects of different dates. It was impossible to know which objects belonged to which burial. There was not enough human bones remaining to identify the ages and sexes of the disturbed burials. We do not even know how many burials there originally were.” 

Bateman (1843) provides far, more detail which contradicts the above. He also references other works where objects similar to those from Galley Lowe are mentioned and generally shows his high standard of scholarship.

“The 30th of June, 1843, was occupied in examining the middle part of a large barrow on Brassington Moor, usually called Galley Lowe, but formerly written Callidge Lowe, which is probably more correct. About two feet from the surface were found a few human bones mixed with rats' bones and horses' teeth; amongst these bones (which had been disturbed by a labourer digging in search of treasure) the following highly interesting and valuable articles were discovered: — several pieces of iron, some in the form of rivets, others quite shapeless, having been broken on the occasion above referred to, two arrow-heads of the same metal, a piece of coarse sandstone, which was rubbed into the form of a whetstone; an ivory pin or bodkin, of very neat execution; the fragments of a large urn of well-baked earthenware, which was glazed in the interior for about an inch above the bottom; two beads, one of green glass, the other of white enamel, with a coil of blue running through it, and fourteen beautiful pendant ornaments of pure gold, eleven of which are enriched by settings of large and brilliantly coloured garnets, two are of gold without setting, and the remaining one is of gold wire twisted in a spiral manner, from the centre towards each extremity (a gold loop of identical pattern is affixed to a barbaric copy of a gold coin of Honorius in the writer's possession); they have evidently been intended to form one ornament only, most probably a necklace, for which use their form peculiarly adapts them. It will here not be out of place to borrow some quotations relative to a remarkable superstition connected with glass beads similar to those discovered in Galley Lowe, particularly the one having "two circular lines of opaque sky-blue and white,” which seem to represent a serpent entwined round a centre, which is perforated. "This was certainly one of the Glain Neidyr of the Britons, derived from glain, which is pure and holy, and neidyr, a snake. Under the word glain, Mr. Owen, in his Welsh Dictionary, has given the following article : " The Nair Glain, transparent stones, or adder stones, were worn by the different orders of the Bards, each exhibiting its appropriate colour. There is no certainty that they were worn from superstition originally; perhaps that was the circumstance which gave rise to it. Whatever might have been the cause, the notion of their rare virtues was universal in all places where the Bardic religion was taught.”

These beads are thus noticed by Bishop Gibson, in his improved edition of Camden's Britannia: "In most parts of Wales, and throughout all Scotland, and in Cornwall, we find it a common opinion of the vulgar, that about Midsummer-eve (though in the time they do not all agree) it is usual for snakes to meet in companies, and that by joining heads together and hissing, a kind of bubble is formed, like a ring, about the head of one of them, which the rest, by continual hissing, blow on, until it comes off at the tail, when it immediately hardens, and resembles a glass ring, which whoever finds shall prosper in all his undertakings : the rings they supposed to be thus generated are called gleinen nadroeth, namely, gemma anguinum. They are small glass annulets, commonly about half as wide as our finger-rings, but much thicker, of a green colour usually, though some of them are blue, and others curiously waved with blue, red, and white.'' There seems to be some connexion between the glain neidyr of tlie Britons and the ovum anguinnm, mentioned by Pliny as being held in veneration by the Druids of Gaul, and to the formation of which he gives nearly the same origin. They were probably worn as a mark of distinction, and suspended round the neck, as the perforations are not large enough to admit the finger. A large portion of this barrow still remaining untouched on the south-east side, which was but little elevated above the natural soil, yet extending farther from the centre, it offered a larger area, in which interments were more likely to be found than any other part of the tumulus, it was decided on resuming the search on the 3d of July, 1843, by digging from the outside until the former excavation in the centre was reached. In carrying out this design the following interments were discovered, all of which seem to pertain to a much more remote era than the interment whose discovery has been before recorded. First, the skeleton of a child, in a state of great decay ; a little farther on a lengthy skeleton, the femur of which measures nineteen and a half inches, with a rudely ornamented urn of coarse clay deposited near the head ; a small article of ivory, perforated with six holes, as though for the purpose of being sewn into some article of dress or ornament (a larger one of the same kind was found in a barrow at Gristhorpe, near Scarborough, in 1832) ; a small arrow-head of gray flint, a piece of iron-stone, and a piece of stag's horn, artificially pointed at the thicker end, were found in the immediate neighbourhood of the urn. Between this skeleton and the centre of the barrow four more skeletons were exhumed, two of which were of young persons; there was no mode of arrangement perceptible in the positions of the bodies, excepting that the heads seemed to lie nearest to the urn before mentioned. Amongst the bones of these four skeletons a small rude incense cup was found, which is of rather unusual form, being perforated with two holes on each side, opposite each other.”

According to Fowler (1954) the necklace was found in a burial which can be assigned to a definite period and date: “An intrusive burial in an earlier barrow. Disturbed inhumation near to the surface. With the burial was a gold and garnet necklace which is in Sheffield Museum (S.M. Cat., J.93, 707, illustrated there). According to Leeds (Art and Archaeology, p. 109), and to Baldwin Brown (Baldwin Brown, p. 773), this necklace of Kentish type should be seventh century. The reasons for this dating depend upon the cloisonné and filigree style. Also found were several large iron rivets, perhaps of a coffin, iron arrowheads (?), a bone pin (S.M. Cat., J.93, 419), fragments of a pottery vessel, said to be slightly glazed, but now lost, and two beads (S.M. Cat., J.93, 711, 712). The pin has a large swollen eye.”

The excavations by Bateman were not the last time that finds were made at Galley Low. In the late 1950's human remains were revealed after ploughing, including a skull with a quartzite pebble in its mouth. The remains were reburied by Mr. and Mrs. F Radford. This is an interesting find, considering, that according, to Craig (2010), in her PhD study on early Medieval burial practices states:

“Many of the sites that were in use from the 8th -9th centuries and where a range of grave elaborations such as coffins, chests and grave linings were present, also included a distinctive group of grave goods. These include coins, beads, pebbles, pins and combs, and sometimes knives, buckles and rings.” Craig also states that “Several, perhaps more idiosyncratic, finds were also characteristic of the case- study sites. Stones and pebbles were one of the most frequent forms of grave goods at Adwick. Coloured stones were favoured and include white and pink quartz, flint and red pebbles.”

Other finds from Galley Low included these two beads and the bone pin and dagger pommel below:

All images from Museums Sheffield (2012), flanking pages to that referenced.

To understand the origin of the Galley Low necklace, I dug deeper into the history of the peoples living in the Peak District during the chaotic, early Medieval era. If we turn back to Fowler (1954), we find some tentative conclusions regarding who the inhabited the region. It is worth quoting a fairly long passage:

“That the Trent valley, at least as far inland as the Burton-on-Trent area, was settled early in the late sixth century A.D. by Anglian bands, is a long accepted thesis. It has been assumed generally that from this area, where later Repton became a royal town, and which one feels may have been the district where the royal line felt itself most at home, the Peakland, among other districts, was conquered sometime in the late sixth, or the seventh century. The Anglo-Saxon jewellery, of Kentish type, is the main evidence for this view, and it is of course evidence of the utmost importance.

However, one is impelled to ask whether this is the whole story. Now that the theory of the "extermination" of the Britons has lost support, and now that there is general belief in a period of British prosperity – albeit brief, tribal and under "tyrants"; now that Anglo-Saxon material in general has been sifted and classified to a considerable extent, we can pause to look more closely at what one might call peripheral material, in border areas, among which we may hope to find tangible indications of those Britons who to some extent managed to hold their own or at any rate to survive.

Such a border area is the Peak District, lying as it does on the eastern edge of the Highland Zone. It is an area not in itself immediately desirable to the Anglian invaders, especially to those who found themselves conveniently suited in the lower valley of the Trent. In this upland region, among the many tumuli of the Bronze Age, intrusive burials have been found, accompanied by iron and other objects manifestly of our own era; other tumuli are known in the district, which were first built during the Anglo-Saxon period. Among the relevant burials there exists a considerable confusion of material types accompanying the dead. These types can be classified under the following heads:

(a) Romanizing or Celtic.

(b) Kentish or Frankish.

(c) Objects of a Christian significance.

(d) Anglo-Saxon, non-Kentish.

Among the Romanizing material we find the Grindlow bowl, the Thors Cave barrow bronze pan (connected with the Chessel Down bronze pan which is linked to Castor ware by its stamped leopard), and occasionally late coins; also the Castern geometrically patterned bracelet, the Newhaven "boss", and little vessel. Also there are a few fragmentary finds which belong to this group.

Among the Kentish material, there is the group of fine cloisonné and filigree jewellery, and the glass, as well as the remarkable shield bosses. Christian symbols link with this group - the Winster filigree cross particularly, and perhaps also the cross on the Benty Grange helmet.

A Frankish element is introduced by the Bruncliff jug, and perhaps by another pot. The spearheads and a few knives, and presumably the swords from Brushfleld represent what we may call normal Anglo-Saxon, along-with single beads found in several burials, and the Wyaston link of beads.

The major problem which arises is how to synthesize this curious hybrid collection. The oddest thing about the area is the comparatively large amount of Kentish material; single finds of such things would cause little surprise, but this is a considerable amount of such material and cannot be lightly dismissed as casually acquired. Some serious reason for its provenance must be found. Further, that such material - and in at least one case specifically Christian in origin - should be found so far north in what are, properly speaking, pagan type tumuli, seems to indicate something strange. What was the racial and political grouping of the people who left these things? Were they Anglian, British, or British with an intrusive Anglian ruling element? They could have been, one presumes, Anglians settled rather apart from those of the Trent valley, and perhaps with differences with regard to their Continental origin; or British with bartered or looted material from nearby Anglian settlements; or simply British with a small intermixture of Anglian settlers - these presumably being their self-imposed leaders.

The view that they were British would depend for its acceptance largely on the nature of the bartered or looted material, and on the circumstances of its burial. The Anglo-Saxon material found in our district, with the exception of iron knives, spearheads, and needle boxes, and more particularly of the beads from Wyaston, is not comparable to that normal in the Trent valley; there is a marked absence of cruciform brooches, for instance; and the group of Kentish or generally speaking, southeastern types, from the Peak District, is not paralleled to the east of this area. It therefore seems unlikely that it was brought in by simple trading means, and it could not on the same grounds have been loot from raided valley settlements. But, on the other hand, although the details of many of the finds are meagre, it is undoubted that some of the barrows, for example Wyaston, an earthen barrow of a kind not normal in the area, and

Lapwing Hill, with coffin rivets remaining, were decidedly of Anglo-Saxon rather than Celtic types. As against these

being purely Anglian, there is of course the difficulty raised by the apparent absence of tumulus burial among the early Anglian settlers of the Trent valley. Nevertheless, in the face of the undoubtedly non-Celtic nature of the barrows mentioned above, and the rather larger amount of Anglo-Saxon material than one would find, or expect to find, in a purely Celtic backwater, an uncolonized British community seems rather unlikely to have been left to its own area.”

To further her arguments Fowler (1954), looks to the necklace and similar period jewelry, found nearby, to pin down the timeline of when and how these rich objects found their way to the limestone plateau at the eastern edge of the Peak District: “Now the Kentish filigree jewellery, some of which is found in our Peak District burials, is considered to have reached its most prolific and its best period in the late sixth to early seventh centuries, as one of the material instances of the well-being and the stability of Kent under Aethelbert. Further, the examples, cross and brooch, from Winster Moor were thought by Baldwin Brown to be late examples of this jewellery - he speaks of the dullness of the filigree, etc. They could have been, then, products not of the richest and most artistic period, but of a time much nearer to the middle of the seventh century."

So then, then Galley Low necklace probably dates from around 580 A.D. and the cross and brooch from as late as 750 A.D. This fact is supported by the fact that Anglian Kings and their allied Britons made conquests in southern England at time. The necklace and other Kentish type jewelry are most probably the spoils of that conflict, brought north by the victors. This leaves the final conundrum, that Christian, Anglians did not bury their dead in pagan tumuli.

Fowler, now examines the literary evidence, in some detail and reaches a more-or-less, cogent conclusion, regarding the ethnic origins of the people that made the intrusive burial at Galley Low and the icongruity of the tumuli burials:

“However, if we postulate a group of Britons with Anglian military leaders, who had entered the district sometime in the first half of the seventh century, this fits even better. The British part of the community could have been responsible for the persistence of tumulus burial; the Anglian military aristocrats for the alliance with Mercia in the raids on the south-east. In this way the non-British features in a few of the tumulus burials of the period (e.g. coffin rivets), could be the more easily explained. The sword burials at Brushfield and Tissington could be regarded as the graves of some of the Anglian warriors, taking over the tumulus rite. It cannot be suggested that this gives a final answer to the problem in our area for this period; it is difficult to explain ail features satisfactorily.”

References

T. Bateman and S. Glover 1848. Vestiges of the Antiquities of Derbyshire, and the Sepulchral Usages of Its Inhabitants: From the Most Remote Ages to the Reformation. P37-8. John Russell Smith, London

Craig, E.F., 2010. Burial practices in Northern England c AD 650-850: A bio-cultural approach (Doctoral dissertation, University of Sheffield) 

Fowler, M. 1954. 'The Anglian Settlement of the Derbyshire-Staffordshire Peak District', Derbyshire Archaeological Journal. Volume 74, pp 134-151. p146-7. 

Museums Sheffield (2012) at: http://collections.museums-sheffield.org.uk/view/objects/asitem/342/26/collections-asc;jsessionid=ECD52340C64AE65D330468AD447467FF?t:state:flow=eb090c04-99f2-4fe2-93c5-5edbb8ba8c25 Accessed 19/01/21 

Additional reading

Derbyshire Historic Environment Record: Monument record MDR2804 - Galley Low Bowl Barrow, Brassington at: https://her.derbyshire.gov.uk/Monument/MDR2804 accessed 19/01/21

 

T. Bateman and S. Glover (1848) Vestiges of the Antiquities of Derbyshire, and the Sepulchral Usages of Its Inhabitants: From the Most Remote Ages to the Reformation. at: https://archive.org/details/vestigesantiqui00glovgoog/page/n51/mode/2up accessed 19/01/20