File:Early Medieval great square headed brooch (FindID 526427).jpg

English: Fragment of a cast copper brooch of Early Medieval date. The fragment consists of part of the headplate or one branch. It is flat on the back and slightly convex on the front, thicker towards the centre and thinning towards the edges. All the edges are broken with very worn, patinated breaks but the upper right and right edges appear almost complete while those on the left and bottom are broken where the plate is thicker (the labelling of the edges is based on the orientation shown in the photograph, this may, or may not be correct). On the front is a very worn design, probably broadly symmetrical interlaced and possibly anthropomorphic or zoomorphic within a multiple line border. There are no remains of gilding but the corrosion products are similar to those that often form under gilding. On the back is a pair of D-shaped lugs, drilled to hold a cross bar with iron corrosion between them which is probably the remains of the pin. The remainder of the brooch was probably attached at the centre of the lower edge and is now missing. It is now 34.7mm long, 23.5mm wide and 8.4mm thick, 3.2mm excluding the pin lugs, it weighs 10.17 grams.

Due to the shape it was initially thought this was part of an trefoil brooch dating to c.AD 850-950 and Dr Kevin Leahy, National Finds advisor for later Early Medieval finds agrees with this interpretation, suggesting NLM5243 as a parallel with similar Borre/Jellinge style decoration.

Alternatively the position of the breaks and the width (given the orientation based on the pin lugs) may suggest this head is part of a larger plate. The position of the pin lugs would also be unusual for a brooch of this type. While the pin lugs allow for a general orientation it may be the way up shown in the photograph or exactly 180 degrees rotated. It has been suggested it is part of the headplate from a great square-headed brooch (J Cassidy, pers.comm.) of the 6^th century AD which would be an usual find this far west.

Dr Helen Geake, National Finds advisor for Early Medieval finds comments (pers comm.): It is definitely an early AS brooch, but as you say it's a difficult one. The frame around the outside that can just about barely be seen, and the relief decoration within, does argue that, as Julie Cassidy said, it should be a great square-headed brooch. The size is approximately right for a medium-sized version, with a headplate somewhere around 4cm wide between the inner frame edges. We would have lost the outer headplate frame, and as far as I can see we have just one field of decoration surviving within the frame. Hines (1997) includes these are potential parallels:

Group X: Little Wilbraham 3 - pl. 33b, Unprovenanced [X] - pl. 34b

Group XIII: Little Wilbraham 158 - pl. 42b, Ruskington (1937) 4/5 - pl. 43a

Group XXV: Wasperton 65 - pl. 89a, Bidford-on-Avon (1990) 26 - pl. 89b, East Shefford [XXV] - pl. 89c

Or even unclassified: Little Eriswell 28 - pl. 91c.