Context (Found together / assemblage)
Contained hoard of iron implements (Z 16466 - Z 16474)
Event Date
Author: maa

Description (Physical description)
Accession Register: 'Lead barrel/bucket'
Event Date
Author: Imogen Gunn (admin)

Loan (Exhibition)
Fitzwilliam Museum accompanying display of Anglo Saxon coins: ANGLO SAXON ART IN THE ROUND
Event Date
Author: maa

Context (Found together / assemblage)
According to Thomas McKenny Hughes, the lead tank (Z 16465) was presented to Trinity College, Cambridge by Mr. Hall of Six Mile Bottom. It was 'dug up in draining the field behind the School and Post Office at Westley Waterless... [It] contained a bill and spearhead with side-opening sockets. Another spear, too long to be placed inside, lay across the vessel. There were also in it a steel-yard weight, holdfasts, an auger, a small coulter, staples, hasps, portions of what may have been a lock, and other fragments of iron' (p. xv) (Z 16466 - Z 16474). This discovery predates 1879, when Hughes made his presentation, but the date of discovery is currently unknown.
Event Date
Author: Imogen Gunn

Context (Display)
Thomas McKenny Hughes displayed this tank or a drawing of it at meeting of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society meeting on 17 March 1879.
Event Date 17/3/1879
Author: Imogen Gunn (admin)

Context (References)
Hughes, T. McKenny. (1881). 'Report Presented to the Cambridge Antiquarian Society at the AGM, May 26th, 1879'. Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, vol. 4(2). pp. xiv-xvi.
Event Date 1881
Author: Imogen Gunn

Description (Physical description)
Thomas McKenny Hughes: 'On the outside sixteen figures in relief, like inverted Runic crosses, ran down from the lower edge of the rim to within 1.5 inches of the bottom of the vessel. The ornamentation on the shafts was an endless intertwined cord. The head was almost obliterated in every case, but seems to have been a cross between four endless knots. There did not appear to be any back and front indicated by the ornamentation. A strong piece of lead beaten-over held iron hasp-like loops, in which were iron rings 2.5 inches in diameter.'
Event Date 1881
Author: Imogen Gunn (admin)

Description (Physical description)
Cyril Fox: 'Elaborately decorated with vandyked panels of interlaced work (cast in a mould). The circular panels present four triquetrae, forming a cruciform pattern.'
Event Date 1923
Author: maa

Context (References)
Fox, Cyril. (1923). Archaeology of the Cambridge Region. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. p. 300, Pl XXXV
Event Date 1923
Author: Imogen Gunn

Context (References)
Mawer, Frances. (1994). 'The Lost Lead Tank From Icklingham, Suffolk'. Britannia, 25. pp. 234 (fn 123)
Event Date 1994
Author: Imogen Gunn (admin)

Description (Physical description)
Cylindrical lead tank with flat base, everted rim and no lid. Two cast iron loop handles attached opposite each other at the rim and suspended from protruding smaller iron loops. Decorated with multiple raised triangular panels, wider at the rim and tapering to a point with a circle at the tip. Criss-cross pattern within panels. Rim beginning to detach in areas.

Event Date 19/5/2021
Author: Louise Puckett

Context (Other)
This is likely the 'untraced vessel from Six Mile Bottom, Cambs.' referred to by Mawer (1994) in a footnote regarding evidence for iron ring-handles of Roman lead tanks. The confusion likely arose from Thomas McKenny Hughes' description (1881) of this tank, which does have iron ring-handles but is Anglo-Saxon, in which he notes that the donor was from Six Mile Bottom. However the tank itself is from Westley Waterless.
Event Date 26/7/2022
Author: Imogen Gunn (admin)