The Wooperton Strap end
An Anglo-Saxon Strap-end from Wooperton
Professor Richard N. Bailey.
Northumberland and Durham have produced very little decorated Anglo-Saxon metalwork of the ninth century. A gold ring found between Hexham and Corbridge, two strap-ends from excavations at Bamburgh and a further unpublished strap-end found on Lindisfarne in 1986 probably gives the complete tally (Bailey 1974; Webster et al 1991, no. 195). This paucity of finds is even more remarkable given the extensive excavations at Monkwearmouth and Jarrow by Professor Cramp and the numerous discoveries of the ninth-century coinage in the area (Pirie 1986). The contrast with the position further south in Yorkshire, with sites like Whitby, York, Cottam and Cowlam yielding large quantities of such material, is very marked (Peers and Radford 1943; Waterman 1959; Haldenby 1990-1992). The discovery by a metal detector of a highly decorated strap-end. What makes this find of even greater significance, however, is that its appearance provoked the first identification of a distinctive workshop active in the production of this form of object. I am very grateful to the finder and owner, Mr. Melvyn Hepple for permission to publish this important piece here, to Sandra Hooper for supplying the drawing and Lindsay Allison-Jones for alerting me to the discovery.