Isleham Hoard

Coordinates: 52°20′35″N 0°24′40″E / 52.343°N 0.411°E / 52.343; 0.411 The Isleham Hoard is a hoard of more than 6,500 pieces of worked and unworked bronze, dating from the Bronze Age, found in 1959, by William 'Bill' Houghton and his brother, Arthur, at Isleham, near Ely, in the English county of Cambridgeshire.

It is the largest Bronze Age hoard ever discovered in England and one of the finest. It consists in particular of swords, spear-heads, arrows, axes, palstaves, knives, daggers, armour, decorative equipment (in particular for horses), and many fragments of sheet bronze, all dating from the Wilburton-Wallington Phase of the late Bronze Age (about 1000 BCE). The swords show holes where rivets or studs held the wooden hilts in place.

The greater part of these objects have been entrusted to St Edmundsbury Borough Council Heritage Service, and some are on display at West Stow Anglo - Saxon Village outside Bury St Edmunds, while other items are held by the University of Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Cambridge.

Isleham

Coordinates: 52°20′N 0°24′E / 52.33°N 0.4°E / 52.33; 0.4

Isleham is a small village and civil parish in the English county of Cambridgeshire. It is part of the Fens.

Geography

Isleham is located in the Fens of south-east Cambridgeshire. The western parish boundary is formed by the Crooked Ditch or Crooked Drain, the eastern boundary largely by the Lea Brook and the north by the River Lark. The village lies on the B1104 from Prickwillow to Chippenham. Isleham is twinned with Nesles in France and Magdala in Germany and recently with Maltov in Russia.

Amenities

The village shops: a Co-op supermarket Post Office. There are also three public houses - The Griffin, The Merry Monk and the Rising Sun - and three churches - the High Street Church, plfc (Pound Lane Free Church) and St Andrew's Church of England parish church.

Archaeology

The region between Devil's Dyke and the line between Littleport and Shippea Hill shows a remarkable amount of archaeological findings of the Stone Age, the Bronze Age and the Iron Age . Findings in Isleham include the famous Isleham Hoard of more than 6500 pieces of bronze, both manufactured articles and fragments of sheet bronze, all dating from the late Bronze Age, and discovered by William 'Bill' Houghton and his brother, Arthur.