Another mysterious object from Lyme Regis needs identifying.

A heavy bronze object was found in Lyme Regis Cobb last year in the shape of a hockey stick, but broken off at the "shoe" end and complete at the "stick" end.

It could be a broken kind of drag anchor, or similar, but bronze is an expensive metal to use for something where cast iron would do. Nobody in Lyme, nor the members of the SW Curators Group, have any idea what it might be part of, unlike last year's brass wheel which, thanks to help from SW Maritime History Society's members, turned out to be from a trolley used with the RAF Air-Sea Rescue launches. This object need not be primarily marine and maybe is part of an object accompanying a broken statue, but after breakage could have been used as a weight, sinker or ballast.

The "shaft" is 42cm long, rectangular in cross section with smoothly rounded edges and tapering towards a neatly countersunk hole its far end. This part is rectangular in section, with neatly round edges. The "shoe" is 16cm long widening as far as the break, and has the same flattened cross section as the blade of a hockey stick. It weighs about 6kg. The well-made, neatly smoothed item has no writing on it, nor any encrustation or barnacles.

If anyone can identify this object please contact:
Richard Bull
Lyme Regis Museum
01297 445447
Email research@lymeregismuseum.co.uk