Casgliadau Arlein

The spring is housed between a pair of lugs to the rear. In the centre of the brooch is a recessed circle now lacking its setting and pierced eccentrically at the rear, perhaps through wear. A broad bronze wall separates the central feature from a broad zone of fan shaped insets of alternating red and blue enamel contained within an outer bronze margin and interspersed by a circle of bronze dots but without bronze walls between the colours. The origins of this brooch are not certain. A similar brooch may be cited from Wroxeter but the use of fan shaped enamel insets occurs commonly on the Continent where the incidence of bronze dots in the enamel is not unknown either.