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locally distinctive andparaliele for both Could be found.atong the surviving
pots from Kempston.
The metalwork other than the shield boss belongs to the familiar
seriee of female accoutrements of Northamptonshire cemeteries but these
are yery different t6 those found in:6th Century graves from.Bedfordshire.
The sleeve.claspeindicate a dress with closed sleeves; the form Of ornament
is unknown from Kempston'and Luton. No girdle-hangers have been .
discovered in Bedfordshire and the developed'. form of cruciform brooch -
is later than,those from Keipston; there iS one of Aberg's group IV from
'Toddington. The only parallel known to the two emall-long brooches is
a single brooch from ChUrchover, Warws., now in the Ashmolean Museum, who
also havea Fen type florid cruciform brooch and a florid wrist clasp.
from the site. One is tempted to suggest these could have been a grave
group but as.with the Burton Latimer finds the-lack of documentary'evidence
taken at the time of discovery precludes the definite assertion
of this inference.
BEDFORDSHIRE AND-NORTHAMPTONSHIRE
A Contrast'in Settlement
The mere survival-of the Burton Latimer finds sUggeats that close
to the large cremation cemetery at Kettering, Stamford Road, there may
have been another large Anglo-Saxon cemetery, of mixed-rite, as opposed
to one purely of cremation burials, Even a.cursory glance at a map of
'Anglo-Saxon burials-froi Northamptonehire suggests a closeness of large
or potentially,large cemeteries. .Two.cemeteriei, broadly contempOrary in
their date; have been found at BrixWorth; their material is.now mixed and
elucidation of individual grave groups:is tOtally impossible. Around
Kettering, there'are ill-recorded and unpublished 5th 7 6th Century cemeteries
at Desborough, Newton-in-the-Willows, Islip,.Burton Latimer,
Thorpe Malsor; and.Rothwell. _There are also.isolated finds, euggesting
buriale, from.Sudborough, Great Addington,-Cranford and Twywell.
Around the Kempston cemeterY there is no siMilar concentration: An
isolated ereniation urn at.Moggerhanger, and-some cremations at Sandy, are
more than 10 km to the.east., .A group of domestic finds from HarrOld'are
a. similar distance t6 the nOrth-west, and the'NewpOrt Pagnell, Bucks:,
cemetery; largely of 6th Century date, is again over 10 km away. The
cemeteries of south Bedfordshire are distant.by 20 km and more. Going due
north'and northeastfrom Kempston the:first sign of other Anglo-Saxon
'cémeteriesIs not reached until the Northamptonshire boundary has been .
crossed; nor are-there'any major cemeteries in Huntingdonshire except in
the environs of Peterborough.
COnstrastingBedfordshire and Northamptonshire,.the PositiOn, of the
Kempston Cemetery looks more and mOre'isolated.. Of all the aspects Of the
KeMpstOn.cemetery It is the most.puzzling and least easily explained. The
riches of the cemetery at Kempston are well'-known: a major collection of
5th Century finds, even if grave groups cannot now be elucidated, much
material belonging:to-a broadly 6th Century context, and a series .ct im-
portant 7th Century (or final phase) graves and finds, all supposedly
within the same cemetery. But there seems to be no concentration of other
Anglo-Saxon cemeteries within a day's walk.
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