Casgliadau Arlein

It has a wide head with appendages. The lower part of the bow is missing. There are marginal mouldings to the ends of the side wings and single appendages to each side of the wide, flat head; a moulding runs part way down the centre of the bow, the skeuomorph of the forward chord hook. The type is discussed by Hull in the Nor'nour report, though the Usk brooch is of better quality and earlier in the series than the Nor'nour examples. The brooch belongs to one of the several Lower Severn Valley Hinged T-shaped types derived from the Developed Polden Hill type. Various other types of Hinged T-shaped brooches, also of Lower Severn Valley origin and similarly derived, though at a further remove from the Developed Polden Hill series, are represented at Usk by No.s 59-64 (publication). Another Hinged T-shaped brooch with wide head with appendages, similarly close to the final form of the Developed Polden Hill series, was found at Caerwent with slightly more devolved examples from Caerwent and Caerleon.