Fig. 421.—Denhead. ¼ – Fig. 422.—Speen. ½
As will be seen, there are ten circular holes, besides two long crescents. The socket is said by Professor Daniel Wilson to contain a thin rod or core of iron, which was inserted in the mould to strengthen this unusually large weapon; but what seemed to Dr. Wilson to be an iron rod is really a piece of wood that has been recently inserted when the spear-head was mended.
In the last class into which these weapons are here divided, are placed those which are barbed at the base of the blade, or in very rare instances are square at that part.
A good typical example (107/12 inches) is shown in Fig. 422, from an original found at Speen, Berks.[1294] It is very heavy, weighing 11¾ ozs. troy, or more than ¾ lb. avoirdupois. Another of the same size, but lighter (8 ozs.), was found in the Severn, near Worcester.[1295]
Another (10¾ inches), found in the Plaistow Marshes, Essex, and now in the British Museum, has a rivet of bronze 2⅜ inches in length still in the rivet-hole. Curiously enough this long rivet appears to be a speciality of this class of weapons. Some of this type, together with some fragments twisted and adhering together as if partially molten, were found in the Thames at Kingston,[1296] and in one of them was the bronze rivet. These are now in the British Museum. Some broken barbed spear-heads of larger size (about 14 inches), also with the rivets still in position, were found with bronze ferrules at a spot called “Bloody Pool,” South Brent, Devon.[1297]
Another (7 inches), found at Pendoylan, near Cardiff, Glamorganshire,[1298] has an oval socket pierced on one side for a rivet, which, however, is wanting.
Canon Greenwell, F.R.S., possesses an example much like that from Speen (10⅞ inches) found in Yorkshire, near the river Humber.
In the Broadward find[1299] (Shropshire) were several spear-heads of this type, mostly retaining their bronze rivets. One of them, about 6 inches long and 3 inches broad, has the base of the blade at right angles to the socket, and not sloping downwards. Several bronze ferrules were included in the hoard. What appears to have been a discovery of nearly the same character took place in a bog on a farm called the Wrekin Tenement,[1300] also in Shropshire, where a celt, a small number of swords, and about one hundred and fifty fragments of spear-heads were found. They are described as being for the most part about 8 inches in length, and having rivets of bronze through the sockets. I have not met with the type in Scotland or Ireland.