A small bronze tool found near Gosberton is set to become one of the intriguing highlights of Spalding Gentlemen’s Society’s museum when it reopens in spring 2027.
The object has been acquired as part of preparations for the first large-scale redisplay of the Society’s collections since 1911. The project has received support from Art Fund, the national charity for museums and galleries.
The Society’s museum on Broad Street has been closed throughout 2026 while building work takes place. During the closure, staff, community volunteers, young people and early-career heritage professionals have been developing plans for the museum’s future displays.
A new display for Spalding’s collections
The work has included researching objects, uncovering previously untold stories connected with artefacts and submitting ideas for exhibitions. When the museum reopens, the Society plans to include a cabinet of curiosities featuring some of its most extraordinary and intriguing items.
The newly acquired bronze tool is one of the objects being considered for display. It was found locally, near Gosberton, and the Society says it illustrates the breadth of material being discovered in the ground close to the communities it serves.
Its age is part of the mystery. The Copper, or Chalcolithic, Age lasted approximately from 2500 to 2200 BCE before being followed by the Bronze Age, which in Britain lasted approximately from 2200 to 800 BCE.
Why the object may not be a weapon
The tool has a green-brown patina from centuries in the earth, possibly as many as three or four thousand years. Its blade is blunted and scarred, and its proportions are unusually compact: it measures 83mm long, 48mm at its widest point and 6mm thick.
Although it is made of bronze, the item does not fit the expected form of a Bronze Age weapon. It has no flanging, securing loop or socket for fixing it to a handle. Those features have led the Society’s Honorary Curator, Ian Hoult, to suggest that it may instead be a chisel or an adze, an ancient cutting tool used for working wood.
The blade would have been fixed into a handle using resin and sinew. In an image showing three bronze tools or axes from the Society’s collections, the newly acquired object is positioned in the centre. It is similar in design to the largest example, but considerably smaller.
Reopening planned for spring 2027
The Society hopes visitors will be able to see the tool for themselves when the Broad Street museum reopens in spring 2027. Until then, the redisplay project is giving the team time to examine the collections and decide how objects, including this locally found tool, can be used to tell new stories about the area’s past.