Looms and loomweights

The apparatus required for weaving cloth. Normally the variety of loom employed can be deduced only from surviving fragments of the resulting cloth. Through Europe the evidence is clear that the vertical loom with weighted warps was standard until classical times. The loomweights employed, disc-shaped, quoit-shaped or pyramidal are frequently found on sites from the Late Neolithic onwards, being particularly frequent in the Bronze Age. They reappear with the Anglo-Saxons.

Loomweights have been found on several sites in buckinghamshire. Many date to the Iron Age, such as those found during excavations of an Iron Age settlement at Coldharbour Farm. Many Saxon loomweights have also been found, such as those found at the Saxon settlement at Church Farm, Bierton.