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Archaeologia Cantiana -  Vol. 69  1955  page 38

THE JUTISH CEMETERY AT LYMINGE    By Alan Warhurst, B.A., A.M.A.
Lyminge bottle, like a very similar, but smaller example from Herpre,1 does not show the expanded base which is characteristic of many late Roman and most Frankish flasks (cf. The Bifrons bottle). This does not argue necessarily for a late date, on the grounds that this feature is merely a debasement of the late Roman pedestal, for the simple rolled over base is found on the late Roman cylindrical flask also. The Lyminge bottle was probably manufactured about the middle of the fifth century A.D. but its exotic and valuable nature render it uninformative for dating the cemetery, or even the grave, in which it was found. It may well have been up to 100 years old when it was buried.
   The amber-coloured glass claw-beaker found in grave 41 shows a very wide flare of the mouth. This helps to place it in a group suggested to have been manufactured about the middle of the fifth century A.D.2

OTHER FIND FROM LYMINGE
   In 1890, Canon Jenkins, a noted Lyminge antiquary, reported to the Society of Antiquaries that a number of burials of Saxon date had been discovered during the cutting of the Elham Valley railway line.3 The burial goods included a garnet set radiate-headed brooch and a knobbed cruciform brooch, the foot of which terminates in an animal head.4  

Spearheads and shield bosses were also found.
   The site of these finds stands upon rising ground on the opposite side of the Elham Valley from the parish church and geographically the finds are more closely linked with a settlement on the site of modern Lyminge than are those of the newly discovered cemetery. Their date, however, would seem to indicate that the cemetery from which they came was in use about the same time, and possibly a little earlier, than the other,

THE IMPORTANCE OF SAXON LYMINGE.
   The geographical situation of Lyminge is impressive for it stands at the head of the Elham Valley and yet holds a commanding position across the watershed which divides this valley from the gathering grounds of the streams which flow to the sea at Hythe, Sandgate and Folkestone. Furthermore the ancient trackway, running along the scarp of the downs north-west to south-east, passes close to the modern village.
   1. In the British Museum, no. 1905, 5-20, 8.
   2. W. A. Thorpe, English Glass, pp. 54-5.
   3. V.C.H. Kent, Vol. 1, p. 364; Proc. Soc. Antiq., X,p. 206. The find-spot (N.G.R. 1650.4070) is a few yards to the north of the bridge over the (now disused) railway cutting, which carries a road from Lyminge to Paddlesworth (See fig.2)
   4. Both in the British Museum and illustrated in V.C.H. Kent, and in Aberg, op. cit., p. 90.

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