Tyne and Wear HER(13620): Marden, Beach Croft Avenue, lead object - Details
13620
N Tyneside
Marden, Beach Croft Avenue, lead object
Marden
NZ37SE
Measurement
Weight
Medieval
C14
Find
A lead object was found in topsoil in 1966. It weighed about 3.5 ounces. A hole had been pierced through it. It measured 3/16 inches x 5/16 inches and tapers towards the front. It was decorated with a lion. The British Museum Catalogue for 1907 page 269 shows a similar object which has been identified as a weight from the old provinces of Languedoc and Guienne in southern France. Such weights can be bronze or lead. They were either a pound, half or quarter pound in weight. They generally date to the 14th century, but began in the 13th. The device on the front indicated the authority (ecclesiastical or secular) which exercised jurisdiction in the town or district where the weight was issued. A French weight might have ended up here due to priors of Norman ancestry being located at Tynemouth Priory.
3592
7048
NZ35927048
Milburn Preston, 1971, A lead weight from Tynemouth, in Archaeological Newsbulletin for Northumberland, Cumberland and Westmorland, No. 11, 1971, page 15