Over the last year, as you may remember from previous articles, I have spent quite a bit of time with a local find – the Cheddar Brooch. This magnificent silver and gold disc brooch was found by metal detectorist, Iain Sansome, in 2020 in the vicinity of the Saxon stronghold of Cheddar.
It is a very rare find, and I have been investigating its significance and the techniques used in its design and manufacture. I decided that the best way to discover more about how the brooch was made was by experiment. When I examined the brooch under high magnification and compared my re-creation, I could see that the pattern was not made in this way. The finesse of the sides, edges and detailing where the pattern overlaps was not the product of just a saw and file. I tried an engraving tool with much better success. It struck me how thin the actual silver for the top pattern is. This would be easily worked with an engraving tool or small chisel, particularly if it was stuck onto a background of pitch or mix of hard waxes (which is still used nowadays to hold jewellery for engraving, surface work and stone setting).
Moving on from the research, I felt that I wanted to produce some modern work that reflected part of the story of this brooch. Although I love the creatures and their woven bodies, I didn’t want to do a direct copy – a computer could do that. As I filled my sketch book with ideas, I kept returning to the flowing stems and leaves that add such a rich pattern to the work. The samples of leaf motif that I started with were pierced from flat sheet in the same way as the brooch but as I got more intrigued by the design I began to use wire and leaf shaped pieces of silver, so that I could physically overlap them and work with them in a similar way to a real leaf and stem. This was more pleasing to me and useful for developing in to a variety of types of jewellery.
Having made the flowing weave, I felt I wanted to introduce colour and at this point I fell into a dilemma. For my pieces, I could visualise the cool greens and blues of the natural environment which seemed to work very well with the natural theme. But equally I wanted to pay homage to the brooch’s opulent mix of gold and silver, and also the Saxons’ love of rich red garnets which glow like hot coals. So I have done both and the two aspects, although sharing the original inspiration, are developing as quite different collections. The green and blue gemstone pieces are more abstracted – leaning towards the flow and wave movement – while the warm garnet and gold have a symmetry that relates directly to the brooch and has connotations of regal opulence.
The Saxon period of craftsmanship fascinates me for many reasons, but one aspect which I love is the story-telling and symbolism woven into the fabric of the pieces created at the time. So little was documented during these ‘dark ages’, yet there is so much being expressed in the items created.
This was written and published as part of the ‘Hidden Gems’ series of articles by Erica Sharpe for the Western Daily Press.
