A DECORATED LATE IRON AGE TORC FROM DINNINGTON, SOUTH YORKSHIRE By PAULINE BESWICK, F.S.A., M. RUTH MEGAW, J. V. S. MEGAW, F.S.A. AND PETER NORTHOVER IN August 1984 Mr James Rickett, using a metal detector adjacent to a public footpath in a wood near Dinnington, South Yorkshire, found a bronze tore. Recognizing it as an important find he promptly took it into Sheffield City Museum, Weston Park. Subsequently the landowners, Mr and Mrs J. H. Morrell, generously donated the tore to the Museum (Accession no. SHEFM:i984.5i5). Later a careful survey was made of the wood by staff of Sheffield City Museums and the South Yorkshire Archaeology Unit. The tore was found in loamy topsoil about 300mm below the surface in a low lying part of Swinston Hill Wood (about 99m OD), which is in the civil parish of Dinnington St John's, South Yorkshire (Grid Reference SK 53958460) (fig. I-I). The solid geology is Magnesian Limestone which outcrops in parts of the wood. From the evidence of the present vegetation there has been woodland on the site for at least two to three hundred years and it was almost certainly clear-felled during the Second World War and left to regenerate. On the basis of archaeological and place-name evidence, however, woodland has been present probably since Anglo-Saxon times. The evidence comprises ancient surviving earthworks, the place name of a part of Swinston Hill Wood—Bradshaw Wood (= broad woodland, Smith 1961, 146) and the wood's marginal location on the parish boundary. Archaeological survey, following the tore's discovery, located the earthworks of a sub- rectangular enclosure, 40m by 25m, and possiblefieldsabout 140m south of the discovery site (South Yorkshire SMR, Record No. PI 3021) (R. E. Sydes forthcoming). The enclosure is sub-divided into a smaller and a larger compound with no surface evidence for ditches associated with the stony banks, which enclose a total area of about o-i hectares. In both size and shape it compares closely with the class of very numerous small ditched enclosures withfieldsidentified from the air by Derrick Riley on the Bunter Sandstones of South Yorkshire and North Nottinghamshire in recent years (Riley 1980, 31). The origins of some may lie in the late Iron Age (Garton 1987, 67), but fieldwork (pers. comm. D. Garton) and excavation (Riley 1980, 73-81; Garton 1987) have produced predominantly Romano-British material. Other local metal detector finds, some from this enclosure, include first- to fourth-century Romano-British material (Sheffield City Museum records). The enclosure therefore may have been in use at the time the tore was lost but there is no archaeological evidence at present to directly relate the two. Description of the tore The tore is made out of six separate sections of copper alloy of varying compositions (fig. 2; pi. 1) (table 1). The diameter is small, measuring internally 114mm and externally 155mm; the inner circumference is 357mm and the outer 480mm; with the hinge fully extended the maximum width of the front opening is 160mm. The weight is 758g.