Birtley, perforated hammer

In 1931 "a portion of a perforated stone hammer" was found, apparently with a bronze axe (HER no. 654), in Blythe & Co.'s brickyard at Birtley. It was recovered from "a mass of clay involved in a slight landslip, in a thin patch of gravel overlying deep deposits of late glacial lake muds. The gravel is part of an old stream delta formed in the lake, a small patch of dry ground in a swamp".