THE WEEKEND WANDERERS DETECTING CLUB’S

XMAS SPECIAL DIG REPORT

The Weekend Wanderers Special Xmas dig has always been one not to miss! By now most of you will have heard the news of the outstanding discovery made at this meeting on December 21st. First of all I would like to say a big thanks to our marshals who gave up their detecting day to assist the finder of the hoard. Also special mention should be made of FLO Ros Tyrrell for spending hours on the ground doing a proper excavation and overseeing that all was done correctly. Then of course, a very special thank you to the landowner for giving us permission to search his land without which this great find would not have been made.

Those of you who stayed all day to watch the gradual emergence of this awesome treasure find unanimously agreed that this was the most exciting day of their detecting lives. Without a doubt this is the best find ever made in the Weekend Wanderers Detecting Club’s 25 year history!

THE DIG

Eagerly, the first arrivals turned up at first light to be greeted with at the gate with a friendly ‘Good morning’ from Sarah. The day started with a grey overcast sky, a sharp wind but really not that cold so a pleasant day ahead looked promising.

Two days earlier, Pete & Shaun had spent the whole day clearing dust & debris from the barn. Bales of straw were brought in and the whole place was turned into a place more suitable for our famous Xmas dig prizes, pies and mulled cider.

Mike & Shaun found good parking spots for all but before that, our lady marshals Brigitte, Carol & Karen plied everyone with raffle tickets at a �1 a strip. With six superb prizes up for grabs, the 12.30 draw was well anticipated. Maps were handed out on arrival and Colin put up large colour aerial maps of the farm for all to see. The dig started at 9.30 & such a large selection of fields left plenty of room for all. As the dig had now started, the raffle girls spend the morning folding raffle tickets, putting them into the clear lidded bucket to do a draw for the instant table top wins which were in the trailer in the barn. Pete was busy badly arranging the first prize on one of the big bales in the barn when someone urgently sped into the barn calling, ‘Pete you had better take a look, a hoard has been found!’   

It seemed a genuine shout so with a posse of marshals, we headed out to see what was occurring. Having been called out to several false alarms, it is easy to be dismissive but there were two or three people congregated on top of the field so something was clearly up. News soon spread and a large gathering of enthusiasts rapidly grew.

A neat hole had been carefully dug and the finder had pulled out a few pieces of lead revealing what looked like coins. My first comment was, ‘Looks like staters’ but suggested to the finder that he take one out for me to have a proper look at. ‘Saxon! Wow, you’ve got a Saxon hoard!’

We all were glad that FLO for Bucks Ros Tyrrell was on site so I suggested getting her up to the field to take a look herself. Paul was the lucky finder who should be commended for stopping digging leaving the spot in tact for proper excavation.

Pete informed the landowner but he was away on business so his mum came to have a look, driving over on her quad with Ros riding pillion.

Finder Paul saying the signal is as big as a man hole cover means this must be a significant find. Paul, his friend and Ros are in the middle of a crowd of people in the area cordoned off. This was to protect Paul’s discovery so no detecting was allowed within this cordon.

You can see that detecting had stopped for many and this scene of parked detectors remained all day as the excitement grabbed so many fascinated people.

Our friends and Marshals Mike, Shaun and Shaun in the hi-vis jackets kindly offered to remain on site to assist if needed. Meanwhile behind the scenes, Pete and Sarah like swans on water, paddling like mad but keeping a calm appearance, still had the Xmas stuff to sort out in the barn. People were still arriving and needed to be sorted out and Pete was still trying to find the farmer.

As it happened, the size of the object still hidden beneath the ground was becoming apparent and clearly this had the potential to be something very big or perhaps just a few coins and a great big lump of lead. At this stage we simply didn’t know for sure.

The first three coins that were visible were lying flat so perhaps more were underneath. Ros was on hand now so excavations were professionally in progress from this point. Progress was slow of course. Archaeology had to be preserved as so much information could be gleaned from this Dark Ages discovery.

News gradually filtered back that a few more coins had been carefully removed. Dave Shelley of Dei Gratia coins suggested they look like Cnut and Ethelred coins which was pretty exciting news!

So far so good. The size of the mystery object is now revealed. A huge lead container that appeared brim full of coins! Speculation of what the lead object was circulating with suggestions of a lead coffer or perhaps coins buried in a sheet of lead then carefully folded were given.

Pete’s own view is that this may be a lead bucket which has been intentionally folded over at the top. Some days later, Jeremy called Pete informing him that an Anglo-Saxon hoard had been discovered in a lead bucket but museum analysis should ultimately confirm what this lead object is.

Heads were down as finally, Paul removed a strip of lead from the top of the vessel revealing a mass of tightly packed coins.

A gasp of astonishment spread from the patiently waiting crowd and it was nigh on impossible to get a look as the crowd increased.

We were asked by the now pressured Ros to ask everyone to back off a bit but we all wanted to see more!

As the story unfolded, talk of another fifty coins was doing the rounds. Sure enough, a poly bag was being passed around for everyone to hold. Without a doubt this was now a find of major significance but we were very soon going to find out the importance of this find!

I remember someone shaking his head in disbelief saying, ‘There’s hundred of them’ Awesome!

Aston suggested this hoard was in the thousands and being an experienced detectorist of many years he was absolutely right!

See for yourself the condition of the coins. They are flawless and unclipped. It seems like they have never been in public use and look uncirculated.

As a point of interest, there was a mint at Buckingham at the time these coins were deposited. Could there be a link to the Buckingham mint?

Mention should be made at this point of Chris W’s find. Chris came over, a beaming smile, his find was also wonderful. He held in his hand a silver coin of Edward the Confessor and not from the hoard field!

Well done Chris!

A lovely large Tudor buckle, a beehive thimble and medieval artefact were found on the day. As Ros was too busy all day, it would be nice if all those other discoveries got to be recorded so please contact Ros or see your own county FLO and get your finds on the PAS database.

The now famous Sainsburys carrier bag. Filled to capacity, the hoard stretching out the bag with it’s considerable weight left us all speculating that this hoard must be two to three thousand coins in size!

I like the logo on the bag, ‘Live well for less’

Ironic

The day proved to be long. All had returned home and were enjoying dinner. Darkness had fallen so Pete & Shaun cleared the barn and returned it for normal use albeit a much tidier, cleaner barn. Luxury for the farmer’s herd of sheep.

We had to hold on as the farmer had returned but was busy loading sheep onto a livestock lorry for the next day’s market. He was due to work through the night so hadn’t much time to commit to looking at the hoard. He didn’t really know what was going to hit him though!

Hoard finder Paul, FLO Ros, Mike and Sarah accompanied the farmer and his family back to the farm house for the great reckoning. The idea was to quickly count the coins on the farm’s kitchen table so that the farmer get get off to market. Ros had bell ringing practice which could not be missed too so her time was limited.

An hour later, Pete  & Shaun had just finished clearing up the barn and squeezing everything back into the car and trailer (Just!)

Sarah called and asked how we were doing as she said they were struggling. Between them they had only got half way in one hour! We still had to get the road signs in so off we went, leaving them all counting the masses of Anglo-Saxon silver pennies.

Finally, the group in the very warm farm kitchen had completed their grand reckoning and were now  done.

A second call reached Pete on his mobile from Sarah who wearily but still buzzing said, ‘Ok guess how many’

The final tally for this vast hoard was an incredible 5251 pennies and one cut 1/2!

5251!

WoW!

That’s what puts the WoW in Weekend Wanderers!

Here’s a close up shot of the coins that were taken that night to Halton Museum by Ros.

The very next day, a group from Bucks Museum services traveled by van to the British Museum to safely deposit the coins with the conservator.

This being Christmas proved difficult as staff were away over the festivities. Work has already begun on the hoard which will have to be cleaned and catalogued. So far, 700 coins have been cleaned by the British Museum conservator. He says that these coins will be easy to clean so results and more information on the coins could be in quicker than we originally thought. Then there will be an inquest as the treasure process gets goings.

I expect eventually this hoard will hit the media but finder Paul has asked that he should be the one to write articles for the magazine and quite rightly too. Paul deserves to have this privilege and to receive the full accolade of the media and general public for that matter.

Well done Paul, it’s a fantastic discovery and probably of National importance and mad by such a nice guy too!

More photos on this page soon!

Thank you Guy and Nick for sending in the photos

REQUEST

Can Feroxchaser contact Pete re: YouTube video as TV news cannels would like to use it.

Thanks.

Pete