The Lenborough Hoard is a

hoard A hoard or "wealth deposit" is an archaeological term for a collection of valuable objects or artifacts, sometimes purposely buried in the ground, in which case it is sometimes also known as a cache. This would usually be with the intention of ...

of more than 5,000 late

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...

silver coin Silver coins are one of the oldest mass-produced form of coinage. Silver has been used as a coinage metal since the times of the Greeks; their silver drachmas were popular trade coins. The ancient Persians used silver coins between 612–330 B ...

s, dating to the eleventh century, that was found at

Lenborough Lenborough is a hamlet (place), hamlet in the parish of Buckingham next to Gawcott, in Buckinghamshire, England. It is in the civil parish of Gawcott, Gawcott with Lenborough. Description Lenborough consists mainly of barn conversions and farm ...

Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (, abbreviated ''Bucks'') is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-east, Hertfordshir ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

in 2014. It is believed to be one of the largest hoards of Anglo-Saxon coins ever found in Britain. It is now on display at Discover Bucks Museum in

Aylesbury Aylesbury ( ) is the county town of Buckinghamshire, England. It is home to the Roald Dahl Children's Gallery and the Aylesbury Waterside Theatre, Waterside Theatre. It is located in central Buckinghamshire, midway between High Wycombe and Milt ...

Discovery

The hoard was discovered, on 21 December 2014, on farmland in the

hamlet of

, between

Buckingham Buckingham ( ) is a market town in north Buckinghamshire, England, close to the borders of Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire, which had a population of 12,890 at the United Kingdom Census 2011, 2011 Census. The town lies approximately west of ...

and

Padbury Padbury is a village and civil parish in north Buckinghamshire, England. It is located on the A413 main road that links Buckingham with Winslow. History The village name is Old English in origin, and means 'Padda's fortress'. In the Domesday ...

, during a metal detectorist rally organised by the Weekend Wanderers Detecting Club involving approximately one hundred people. One of the participants, Paul Coleman, located the coins inside a

lead Lead () is a chemical element; it has Chemical symbol, symbol Pb (from Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a Heavy metal (elements), heavy metal that is density, denser than most common materials. Lead is Mohs scale, soft and Ductility, malleabl ...

container buried under the ground. Coleman said that he "found a piece of lead and thought it was junk. But then I looked back in the hole and saw one shiny coin. Then I lifted a larger piece of lead and saw row upon row of coins stacked neatly." According to Pete Welch, the founder of the club, the coins were in remarkably good condition: "They're like mirrors, no scratching, and buried really carefully in a lead container, deep down. It looks as though only two people have handled these coins, the person who made them and the person who buried them." They were found protected in a "lead parcel" in the local heavy

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolinite, ). Most pure clay minerals are white or light-coloured, but natural clays show a variety of colours from impuriti ...

soil.

Buckinghamshire County Museum The Buckinghamshire County Museum is a museum in the centre of Aylesbury, in Buckinghamshire, England. It displays artefacts pertinent to the history of Buckinghamshire including geological displays, costume, agriculture and industry. The mus ...

archaeologist Ros Tyrell, the Buckinghamshire Finds Liaison Officer for the

Portable Antiquities Scheme The Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) is a voluntary programme run by the United Kingdom government to record the increasing numbers of small finds of archaeological interest found by members of the public. The scheme began in 1997 and now covers ...

, was present during the rally to record any objects discovered, and excavated the hoard immediately after it was found. The hoard was taken to the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

for examination and conservation.

The hoard consists of 5,252 silver coins, of which 5,251 are whole and one is a portion of a coin that had been cut in half. They date from the first half of the eleventh century, and include many coins from the reigns of two Anglo-Saxon kings,

Æthelred the Unready Æthelred II (,Different spellings of this king's name most commonly found in modern texts are "Ethelred" and "Æthelred" (or "Aethelred"), the latter being closer to the original Old English form . Compare the modern dialect word . ; ; 966 � ...

(reigned 978–1013 and 1014–1016) and

Cnut the Great Cnut ( ; ; – 12 November 1035), also known as Canute and with the epithet the Great, was King of England from 1016, King of Denmark from 1018, and King of Norway from 1028 until his death in 1035. The three kingdoms united under Cnut's rul ...

(reigned 1016–1035). The coins were wrapped in a sheet of lead. The reasons for the burial of the hoard are unknown.

Valuation

As the hoard consists of

precious metal Precious metals are rare, naturally occurring metallic chemical elements of high Value (economics), economic value. Precious metals, particularly the noble metals, are more corrosion resistant and less reactivity (chemistry), chemically reac ...

more than 300 years old, it was assessed by a coroner under the terms of the

Treasure Act 1996 The Treasure Act 1996 is a UK Act of Parliament, defining which objects are classified as treasure, legally obliging the finder to report their find. It applies in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Provisions The Act is designed to deal with ...

to determine whether it was

treasure Treasure (from from Greek ''thēsauros'', "treasure store") is a concentration of wealth — often originating from ancient history — that is considered lost and/or forgotten until rediscovered. Some jurisdictions legally define what constit ...

. Having found to be so, the hoard would be valued by the

Treasure Valuation Committee The Treasure Valuation Committee (TVC) is an advisory non-departmental public body of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) based in London, which offers expert advice to the government on items of declared treasure in England, Wale ...

, and a museum could apply to acquire it by paying the amount of the valuation, which would be shared equally by the discoverer and the landowner. The coins are in such good condition that their total value was estimated at possibly as much as £1.3 million. In June 2016, the Treasure Valuation Committee valued the hoard at £1.35 million. Following a fundraiser the hoard is now on display at Discover Bucks Museum, previously Bucks County Museum, in

with a portion on loan to the Buckingham Old Gaol museum.

References

External links

Bucks County Museum's appeal to raise money to buy the hoard
* (with many photographs)
Video of the excavation of the hoard

Photographs of the Lenborough Hoard
(

flickr account) {{DEFAULTSORT:Lenborough Hoard Anglo-Saxon archaeology History of Buckinghamshire Metal detecting finds in England 2014 in England 2010s in Buckinghamshire 2014 archaeological discoveries Hoards from Anglo-Saxon Britain Archaeological discoveries in the United Kingdom

Discovery

Contents

Valuation

See also

References

External links