| Description | Late Bronze Age hoard, comprising 8 palstaves and 2 spearheads, found in 1856, at a depth of 2 ft. during quarrying at Upper Westercroft, Shelf. The hoard was held originally by the Bankfield Museum, Halifax, but has now been moved to Tolson Museum, Huddersfield. O.S. comment that no record exists of precise provenance of the hoard; they were unable to confirm published find spot which falls in area of disused quarries (Landmere Quarries on O.S. map). Manby (1986) describes the hoard as follows: 1. Transitional looped palstave; surfaces badly ground away by 19th century mechanical cleaning. 2 4. Transitional looped palstaves of Sjhelf type. 5. Transitional looped palstave; Shelf type variant. 6. Transitional looped palstave; unclassified. 7. Transitional looped palstave; Penrith type. 8. Late palstave; Silsden type (see PRN 2961 for Silsden hoard). 9. Large basal looped spearhead, point and socket broken off. 10. Point of a large spearhead. 11. Socket fragment of a spearhead. 12. Side looped spearhead, blade and loops broken off. Item 12 is the earliest piece in the hoard and may have been old scrap metal. No. 1 is held by the Yorkshire Museum (acc. no.1197.1948). Items 2 11 are held by the Tolson museum, Huddersfield. No.12 is described by Manby as lost. N.B. one of the palstaves (not sure which of those listed by Manby above, but not no.12) from this hoard, which has a separate record (PRN 3874), was missing for some time and was then relocated in Bankfield Museum by J.A. Gilks; it was published in Burgess, 1968 (see ref. above). Like the hoards from Churwell, Leeds (PRN 4026), Carr Moorside, Leeds (PRN 4027), Roundhay, leeds (PRN 3173) and Brunthwaite, Silsden (PRN 2961), the Shelf hoard is an industrial hoard, dominated by looped palstaves of transitional class (i.e. it belongs to the Wallington tradition of Later Bronze Age metalworking, c.1000 700 B.C.). These hoards were cast locally; unfinished implements fresh from the mould occur in each hoard. This important group of hoards from the Pennine Coal Measures constitutes the greatest concentration of Wallington bronzes in Yorkshire. |