Bronze Age pottery

Bronze Age pottery found in Herefordshire

The definitive characteristic of the Bronze Age is the use of copper alloy in the manufacture of weapons and tools. Its duration in Britain is estimated as running from the transitional Beaker culture in about 2500BC until the onset of the Iron Age, again defined by metal, in about 700BC.

Beaker pottery found in Herefordshire

The definitive late neolithic/early bronze age culture takes its name from its distinctive type of pottery vessel known as 'beakers', which were certainly used for alcoholic drinks. Some of these are waisted and some have handles giving them an appearance not unlike modern beer tankards.
Early bronze age settlements are rare in the Welsh Marches but this probably reflects lack of fieldwork. Burials are a little more common and two Beaker period burials were found in the Olchon Valley in the 1920s (1)
More recently, a Beaker period burial was found at Aymestry in 1987 and in 1999 a rich burial was found at Wellington Quarry, Marden, north of Hereford) (2)
A beaker from the Olchon Valley, right.

In Herefordshire the first evidence of domestic activity of this period, as opposed to burials, came in 2003 with the discovery of a settlement at Upper Headlands, at the Grove, Staunton on Arrow (3). In September 2006 a pit containing a rim and neck of a Beaker period pot was found on the northern edge of the old livestock market site in Hereford, the circumstances of this find suggesting a domestic context rather than that of the more common burials (4)
Mid and later bronze age pottery found in Herefordshire.


Later bronze age pottery has been found at Leintwardine (5)

A beaker from the Olchon Valley

©Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club, Herefordshire

  1. George Marshall, Report on the discovery of Two Bronze Age Cists in the Olchon Valley, Herefordshire', Transactions of the Woolhope Club, 1932, 147 – 153.
  2. R J Harrison, R Jackson, and M Napthan, 'A Rich Bell Beaker Burial from Wellington Quarry, Marden, Herefordshire'. Oxford Journal of Archaeology, Vol 18, No 1.
  3. Paul White, The Arrow Valley, Herefordshire: Archaeology, Landscape Change and Conservation: Herefordshire Studies in Archaeology 2, Hereford: Herefordshire Archaeology, 26 – 30.
  4. Dale Rouse, The Cattle Market (Edgar Street) Hereford: Initial Archaeological Evaluation. Hereford Archaeological Series 736, unpublished report by Archaeological Investigations Ltd.
  5. J D Hurst, 'A Bronze Age vessel from Leintwardine', Transactions of the Woolhope Club, 1988, 83 – 85.