Bronze Age cremation cemetery, near Alphamstone Church (EHER 9319)

Bronze Age vessels found between 1903-10 including a collared urn, food vessel and ancillary vessels. Pottery containing a cremation was also recovered in 1938. Some of the finds have been accessioned and held in Colchester Museum.

Original HER entry merged with NRHE data import: Late Bronze Age Urns found AD 1904-9 (NAT). <1> Early Bronze Age cremation cemetery; many urns discovered in and near the churchyard and in the field to the west. <2> Burial group in Colchester Museum consists of a rim and portion of base of a large cinerary urn, with overhanging rim ornament with three lines of chevron cord markings; a 'food vessel' of coarse buff ware, with overhanging rim ornamented with impressed cord pattern; two smaller vessels of similar type, one ornamented with incised trellis pattern on the rim, the other with impressed vertical cord lines. <3> <4> Also in Colchester Museum; cinerary urn of coarse brown ware with plain overhanging rim, height 4.75 inches; fragment of a large cinerary urn of the same type ornamented with a twisted cord pattern; food vessel, height 3.875 inches, of coarse brown ware from a grave which contained the large urn fragments of another urn from the same grave, rim ornamented with twisted cord pattern. <5> <6> Colchester Museum also has; large cinerary urn (Abercromby type i) in coarse red ware, its rim with a row of thumb-nail indentations below the neck, found in an inverted position, accompanied by two urns of similar type; one of the latter is 4.5' high, in coarse red ware, rim ornamented with four rows of circular puncture, part restored; the other is of coarse buff ware, unornamented, partly restored, 4' high; also a cinerary urn, of coarse red ware, broad overhanging rim which shows traces of a trellis pattern of twisted cord indentations, apparently much worn and obliterated, urn is 9.25' high. <7> <8> Drawings traced from Colchester Museum report. <9> Two further pots one inside the other apparently containing a cremation, found in the field west of the church. <10> <11> June 1950. Field visit. Many Bronze Age vessels, including collared urns, a food vessel and ancillary vessels, were found at Alphamstone suggesting an urn field site. Some were found during gravel digging in area TL 879 354 between 1903 and 1910, by G. Buttle, many being destroyed <12>. One was found in digging a grave in the churchyard about 1928 by the sexton <13> <14>. Two vessels were found in ploughing the field west of the church about 1938, at a depth of 18 inches, one inside the other. The smaller apparently contained a cremation, and oyster shells were found surrounding the burial: the vessels were destroyed <15>. Some of the above are in Colchester Museum: Accession Numbers 1038-41 <16>, 1197-8, 1200-1 <17>, 1744-7 <18>, and 76.28 <14>. No 1745 is listed by Longworth as a collared urn of the primary series. <19> <20> See also: <21> <22>