FINDS AT OXFORD

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 83, 5 October 1938, Page 16

FINDS AT OXFORD

Excavations in Broad Street, Oxford, for. a tunnel which will link th« old and the new Bodleian Library buildings have Brought to light a : largji number of interesting relics. They include ironwork, pottery, animal bpnes, coins, and counters. They have been placed in the Ashmolean Museum, ■Where some of the broken pottery is being reassembled and other finds await final classification. An outstanding find was a pair of bronze spurs dating back to the. Civil War. They were found about 2ft below the pavement in Broad Street near the skeleton of a horse. A number of iron spurs, including-a woman's pair, were found near the same spot. There was also an iron tool, used by farriers. Other finds were a lead . Customs .stamp, probably used for sealing bales o£ wool, a farthing struck by Charles I under a patent given by James I t» Lord Harrington, an Elizabethan, shilling, and a number of medieval reckoning counters, a pewter spoon, a candle snuffer, Elizabethan plates, and jugs and several buckles. The tunnel is being excavated close to where the city wall and ditch were sited^ and the probability that the ditch was used for dumping rubbish explains the variety' of the discoveries. ' :

from Empire and foreign ports, and 754 vessels (274,793 net register tons) were engaged in coastwise traffitf. The arrivals, included seven meat cargoes, viz., four from' Australia and three from South America, comprising 69,000 carcasses of lamb and mutton, 139,000 quarters of beef, quantities of pork, rabbits, and sundries. Twenty-one timber-laden vessels docked in the Surrey Commercial Docks with 53,000 tons of softwood.