An early Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Quarrington, near Sleaford, Lincolnshire : report on excavations, 2000-2001

Abstract

[FIRST PARAGRAPH] The early Anglo-Saxon cemeteries in the Kesteven part of Lincolnshire form two distinct distribution patterns (Fig.1): a north-south line along, or just to the west of, the limestone edge between the former Roman towns of Lincoln and Ancaster, of which the best known is an outlier near its southern tip, the large mixed-rite site at Loveden Hill; and a cluster in the south-east, of which the best known are Ruskington and Sleaford, essentially inhumation cemeteries but with a handful of cremations each (Leahy 1993; 1999). This paper reports on the excavation of a small inhumation burial site just 2.5km west-south-west of the Sleaford cemetery and now in the civil parish of Sleaford, but formerly in the parish of Quarrington (Fig.2). An Anglo-Saxon burial site has been known from near here since the early nineteenth century, when urned cremations and accompanying inhumations were discovered during gravel digging (Yerburgh 1825; Trollope 1872, pp.98-100; Meaney 1964, pp.160-61; Lincolnshire Historic Environment Record, no.60375). Recently, an Anglo-Saxon settlement of the sixth to eighth centuries has been excavated at Town Road, Quarrington, 1.1km to the east (Taylor 2003). The interrelationship of these three Anglo-Saxon sites is a matter for discussion (below), but it is proposed that the nineteenthcentury discoveries now be known as Quarrington I and the new burial area as Quarrington II