Brooch?

[Cymro]

Went out with my new-to-me DFX today and found this item. I'm going to say it's a brooch of some sort because of the attachments on the rear which I think are for a pin.

It's heavy enough to be made of lead (or a lead alloy) and looks more grey than it does in the pictures since I got the white balance wrong. I've had it in the ultrasonic cleaner for 10 minutes or so to get some of the clay off it before I presented it for inspection.

I'd be interested to know its approximate age and function, if it was more than decorative. Perhaps the pattern might give someone a clue as being typical of a certain period?

Thanks in advance!

[Chef Geoff]

Well found Cymro it's a horse harness boss all lead ones are dated to the 18th century, I've never been able to find a reason for this quite tight dating but that is apparently where they fit

[Cymro]

Thanks for that - it explains a lot.

Like why I found his shoe today, masquerading as a valuable metal . . . 

Are horse harness bosses rare?

[Val Beechey]

Hi Cymro and welcome to the forum.   In answer to you question, no not really though most are very plain.

If you do a Google search for 'Horse harness boss photos'  you'll find numerous ones to compare.  The modern day boss is usually fixed to the bridle at the temple of the horse.

Nice find.

[Cymro]

I must say, I was pleased to have found it.

Can't take much credit for it; I was just in the right place at the right time. The detector beeped, I looked at the numbers (which were in a range which normally indicates a 12-bore cartridge case) and decided to dig it, on the basis that it might just have been something good.

I was quite excited when it came out of the ground - at that stage I didn't know what material it was so I just put it in my finds bag and carried on. That permission is very quiet on finds; we're still trying to work out why.

It is quite decorative compared with some of the Google images - I had already looked after Geoff identified it. Strikes me that there was more than subsistence farming going on there if they had money to spend prettying up their carthorses, but we're getting hardly any coins; a few buttons here and there and loads of cartridge cases (but they're comparatively modern . . . ) Even the ancient to modern footpaths are dead.

To be fair, we've got a lot of land to search (17 fields) and we haven't really scratched the surface yet . . .

[Chef Geoff]

Good point on the substance farming Cymro, being Georgian could even mean that it's actually from an Ox harness rather than a horse as horses are quite new in farming terms and have always been a luxury bit of kit as other than pulling the plough/cart etc they don't actually produce anything and have to be fed, oxen on the other hand are stronger for ploughing, will pull a cart (slower granted) and gives you beef, milk, hides and little ox But as today there were probably agriculture contractors ie the larger farms/estates who owned horse teams that would plough your land for a price and looks are everything with the horses that were kept in better condition and highly decorated getting more business

[Cymro]

Yes, Georgian could work . . . 

Although I've been complaining about the lack of finds, within the first half hour of our first visit there I'd pulled a George III bullhead sixpence out. More luck than judgement since I thought I was following a 200-year-old footpath but in reality I wasn't (I'd entered the coordinates in my GPS wrong . . . ) Just wandering around in the middle of a big field . . .

My buddy later found another (better condition than mine) on a ridge and furrow field at the other end of the farm, and a James I hammered sixpence not far from my George III.

As I said, we're puzzled as to why it's so slow - six public footpaths converge on the farm going back at least 200 years. They've moved over the years but I've researched their original positions and put them in my GPS, but even the modern paths are relatively devoid of finds.

I'm now trying to get permission on the next-door farm too, where there are definitely medieval roads, and a Roman road round the corner 

Never thought about oxen (I've only just got my head around steam ploughing with the big Fowler traction engines . . . )