Skip to main content Accessibility statement

We use cookies on this site to enhance your user experience.

By clicking the Accept button, you agree to us doing so. More info on our cookie policy.

Histories of Northamptonshire
View in timeline

Bronze Age Beaker

2050 - 1900 BCE Geologic to Prehistoric

HIghly decorated pottery vessel, known as a Beaker pot. Found as part of a male burial marked by a Bronze Age round barrow.

Bronze Age pottery vessel or Beaker © NMAG
Bronze Age pottery vessel or Beaker
Burial Plan of excavated Bronze Age Beaker barrow burial at Stanwick Lakes © Andy Chapman
Burial Plan of excavated Bronze Age Beaker barrow burial at Stanwick Lakes
Drawing of Bronze Age Beaker showing decoration © Andy Chapman
Drawing of Bronze Age Beaker showing decoration

This Bronze Age pottery beaker was made some 4,000 years ago and buried along with other grave goods with an individual male under an earthern mound known as a round barrow. It lay at the feet of a man who had died at around the age of 30, and the round barrow close was later hidden beneath the stone buildings of the medieval hamlet of West Cotton, Raunds. It was only discovered when the site was excavated in the mid 1980s before the construction of the A605 Raunds to Stanwick bypass, which now runs over his burial site.

Some 4,500 years ago the Beaker People carried the secrets of copper, bronze and gold working across Europe to Britain and this beaker is characteristic of the highly decorated pots they created.

The beaker helps tell the story of how these people settled, lived and died in Northamptonshire during the Bronze Age. Until the 1950s it was believed thought that the county had only been properly settled in the Iron Age, some 2,000 years later.

Number 12 of the objects selected for the A History of Northamptonshire in 100 Objects Exhibition 2025

Stanwick Lakes - Bronze Age Barrow
Contributed by Andy Chapman, Northamptonshire Archaeological Society

Explore related content (external site)

See our disclaimer

Previous object
Next object

Related objects

  • Iron Age quern stones - top and bottom stones from Hunsbury Hillfort © NMAG
    Geologic to Prehistoric

    Iron Age Rotary Quern

    Rotary quern made from millstone grit used to grind cereals into flour. More than 100 were found at the Iron Age hillfort at Hunsbury Hill.

  • Roman lucet from Orton Waterville (formerly part of Northamptonshire and Soke of Peterborough) © Peterborough Museum
    Roman and Early Medieval

    Roman Lucet

    A lucet was used to make braids and cords. Found at a Roman military site this is the earliest example found in Britain or Europe.

  • Neolithic stone adze © NMAG
    Geologic to Prehistoric

    Neolithic Adze

    With the start of Neolithic farming came new stone tools. This adze is of a type and stone more commonly found in Denmark.

  • Neolithic flint axe found in Higham Ferrers, Northamptonshire © NMAG
    Geologic to Prehistoric

    Thorpe (Neolithic) Axe

    The Thorpe axe, named after the finder of the Axe in the inter-war years, is a large neolithic flint axe found in Higham Ferrers.