File:Profile of cheekpiece showing rectangular slot (FindID 89289).jpg

English: Cast copper alloy cheekpiece from a horse's bridle or toggle to link the trace leathers on a chariot onto the body of the vehicle. Undecorated with a central box which is rectangular in plan and square in section, perforated by a rectangular slot and extended either side by waisted rods with expanded terminals, which are circular in section.

It is rare to find a cheekpiece of this date anywhere in the country, they are only about thirty or so known, but it is the first of its kind to have been found in Cornwall. It is also unusual in that it is plain and not embellished with champlevé enamel or decorated with incised patterns like those nearest parallels from Polden Hill in Somerset (Spratling 1972, 122-125, Fig. 237), where a large hoard of horse gear was uncovered. Another example that is similar in shape, with expanded terminals and waisted arms on either side of a defined and flattened central section, perforated centrally by a rectangular slot for receiving the strap, was found on the Folly Lane site in St. Albans (Niblett 1999, 138, Fig.52). The contexts of the southern British examples, as well as their ornament, suggest that they were current at the time of the Roman Conquest. The general distribution of these objects suggests that they were a fairly standardised piece of equipment, but their original function is difficult to determine.

Hoards such as the one from Polden Hill, which includes a pair of iron cheekpieces and a set of four bronze examples, show that they may have been connected with the harness of chariot ponies and used in pairs. These ‘cheekpieces’ were previously thought to have slotted onto the end of the mouthpiece of a bit, because they were often found associated with bits. An alternative explanation is that they were used as a toggle “to link the trace leathers on a chariot onto the body of the vehicle, having the function that buckles were later to assume” (Niblett 1999, 137). This would have made the link stronger and easier to ‘decouple’.

Late Iron Age c. 1st century AD