6th century AD. A large gilt-bronze brooch, the square headplate surrounded by three wings, each a banded column flanked by two birds’ heads facing outwards, their beaks pierced, supporting flat panels decorated with applied sheet silver; the central panel with billeted border enclosing an upper zone with three elliptical pellets and below a rectangular field with Style I decoration surrounding a central square panel; the bow with raised lateral ridges and a broader central ridge with a central square panel; the footplate divided into three zones, the upper zone with a central rectangular panel of Style I motifs flanked by fields of Style I zoomorphs and flat lappets covered with silver sheet; an addorsed pair of birds’ heads with pierced beaks forming the second zone and below this an expanding trapezoidal field developing into a further lateral pair of birds’ heads with pierced beaks, flanked by c-scroll details and silver-sheet inlay; the central trapezoidal field with a Style I zoomorph; the lower edge with a further T-shaped sheet-silver plate; to the reverse, original pin-lug and ferrous remains of the pin with ancient repair, catchplate with vertical spine. Cf. The brooch is a hybrid form, unpublished in the standard publications but clearly based on the more developed cruciform types, compare MacGregor, A. & Bolick, E. A Summary Catalogue of the Anglo-Saxon Collections (Non-Ferrous Metals) BAR British Series 230, 1993, p.106, items 12.28, 12.37; but with details taken from great square-headed brooches, see also Hines, J. A New Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Great Square-Headed Brooches, Woodbridge, 1997. Hammond, B. British Artefacts, volume I - Early Anglo-Saxon, p.34, Fig.1.1.4.l-k. 160 grams, 18cm (7 1/4"). Found Leicestershire, UK.