A find doesn’t have to be that old to still be an intriguing mystery. I discovered this unusual brooch along a footpath leading between Whaddon and West Grimstead, and not far from where I found the George V sixpence. It gave a somewhat “scratchy” signal—the kind that usually indicates a mix of metals or a piece of modern costume jewellery—but the shape that emerged from the soil was immediately arresting.
It was clearly a brooch that had lost its setting, but the experts at the museum were able to discern so much more about it. They identified this as an incomplete copper alloy costume brooch, (WILT-83EA89) dating to the first half of the 20th century (c. AD 1900–1950). It is constructed in two parts: a flat oval base and a domed outer surface that has been stamped to resemble a human eye. The “eyelids” are formed by two raised ridges, while the “pupil” is a sunken oval that likely once held a decorative stone or a piece of coloured glass, now lost to time.
What makes this find truly peculiar is its orientation. On the reverse, the remains of the hinge and catch-plate show that the pin was fitted at the narrower ends. In standard brooch design, this would mean the piece was worn horizontally. However, for this brooch, a horizontal pin means the eye sits vertically—looking up and down rather than side-to-side. Whether this was a deliberate, surrealist design choice or a manufacturing quirk of a mass-produced “trinket,” it gives the piece an unsettling, almost mystical quality.
At 32.3mm long and weighing just 5.84g, it is a lightweight piece of costume jewellery—affordable finery from the interwar years or the early post-war era. It lacks the silver or gold of higher-status finds, but it possesses a character they often lack. Finding a “watching eye” on a quiet hillside reminds me that even modern items carry a sense of mystery. It feels like a lost piece of someone’s Sunday best, dropped while walking the very footpaths I tread today, leaving a silent, brassy gaze to wait a century or more for someone to look back.
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