Date: Circa: 1550 - 1600 – Northern Cambridgeshire – Conserved:

Size: length: 35 mm: width: 15 mm: weight: 2.2 grams:

Here we have a personal find from the old quarter of Yaxley and detected along a length of the Medieval trackway that still runs east-west from the village of Stilton to Yaxley and the Church of St Peters - [Est. AD 920 as Laceslea]:

The 1^st picture shows the item as found and then as conserved with the copper-alloy oxide patination removed: The pendant is cast from a copper alloy and was likely to have originally gilded however, this has been all but lost over the centuries: The shape is overall oval upon plan with an upper retention neck [complete], an openwork floral mid-body and a cruciform drop finial to the base:

Yaxley / Laceslea Notes:

After the dissolution of Thorney Abbey, Yaxley manor remained in the Crown, until Edward VI granted it in 1550 to Princess Elizabeth, who held it throughout her life. It seems to have been the practice of Thorney Abbey to let all their demesnes at farm for a money rent. They granted a lease of the site of the manor, known as the Burysted as late as 1533, to Richard Ashwell for 40 years at a rent of £12 13s. 4d. In 1565–6 Queen Elizabeth gave a lease of the Burysted to Robert Payne for 21 years, and in 1580 she leased the reversion of it to Edward Emery for 21 years. Again in 1601–2 she gave another lease of the Burysted to Peter Proby for 60 years. She, however, retained the manor, which passed on her death to James I. He granted it first to Queen Anne in 1604 as part of her jointure, and, after her death, to the use of Charles I, then Prince of Wales. On his succeeding to the throne, the manor came into his own possession and he granted it in 1628 to the City of London.