Discovery
The hoard was discovered near Bath, by metal detectorists Lisa Grace and Adam Staples, who were training five friends to use their metal detectors, on 26 January 2019. [1] [2] [3]
| Chew Valley hoard | |
|---|---|
| Type | Hoard of 2,528 coins |
| Discovered | 26 January 2019 Chew Valley, Somerset, England |
The Chew Valley hoard is a hoard of 2,528 coins from the mid-11th century, very shortly after the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. The hoard was found in the Chew Valley, Somerset, England, in 2019. It is one of the largest finds of Norman coins in the UK.
The hoard was discovered near Bath, by metal detectorists Lisa Grace and Adam Staples, who were training five friends to use their metal detectors, on 26 January 2019. [1] [2] [3]
The hoard consists of 2,528 silver coins, including 1,236 coins of Harold II and 1,310 coins of William I. [1] The coins include some mules, coins which have the head of one king on one side and a design from a different king's reign on the other, [4] [5] as well as a number of "cut halfpennies" – penny coins cut in two to make the lower denomination. [6]
The exact purpose of the hoard is unknown, but it has been speculated that some of the coins may represent an attempt at avoiding the taxes in place at the time by reusing designs from earlier coins. [1] [7] Some of the coins may come from previously unknown mints. [8]
The likely date of burial of the hoard is 1067–1068, just a year or two after the Norman Conquest, and may reflect the instability in the country at the time. [5] In 1067, Eadric the Wild had rebelled with the Welsh rulers of Gwynedd and Powys, and attacked Hereford; in 1068 William the Conqueror laid siege to Exeter; and later in 1068, the sons of the deposed King Harold, Godwine and Edmund, returned from Ireland, and raided the coast around the mouth of the River Avon and parts of Somerset. This latter event may have been the immediate impetus for the burial of the hoard. [2]
In October 2024 the hoard was valued at £4.3 million. The charity South West Heritage Trust announced it had acquired the coins for the nation thanks to major funding including from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and the Art Fund. [9]
Under the terms of the 1996 Treasure Act, a museum may purchase the hoard at the price valued by the Treasure Valuation Committee, with the purchase price being given jointly to the finders and landowner as a reward. [1] In this case, the landowner will get 50%, and the two finders and their five companions will spilt the other 50% equally between them, by prior agreement. [3] [10]
The coins were examined and conserved at the British Museum, by a team led by senior conservator Pippa Pearce. [11] The hoard is being displayed there as of October 2024, before touring the country. The hoard will eventually be displayed at the Museum of Somerset in Taunton. [1] [9]
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 most of England and Wales.
A treasure trove is an amount of money or coin, gold, silver, plate, or bullion found hidden underground or in places such as cellars or attics, where the treasure seems old enough for it to be presumed that the true owner is dead and the heirs undiscoverable. An archaeological find of treasure trove is known as a hoard. The legal definition of what constitutes treasure trove and its treatment under law vary considerably from country to country, and from era to era.
The Chew Valley is an affluent area in North Somerset, England, named after the River Chew, which rises at Chewton Mendip, and joins the River Avon at Keynsham. Technically, the area of the valley is bounded by the water catchment area of the Chew and its tributaries; however, the name Chew Valley is often used less formally to cover other nearby areas, for example, Blagdon Lake and its environs, which by a stricter definition are part of the Yeo Valley. The valley is an area of rich arable and dairy farmland, interspersed with a number of villages.
Wissett is a village and civil parish in the English county of Suffolk. It is 2 miles (3.2 km) north-east of the market town of Halesworth in the East Suffolk district. Historically, it was in the Blything Hundred.
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The Vale of York Hoard, also known as the Harrogate Hoard and the Vale of York Viking Hoard, is a 10th-century Viking hoard of 617 silver coins and 65 other items. It was found undisturbed in 2007 near the town of Harrogate in North Yorkshire, England. The hoard was the largest Viking one discovered in Britain since 1840, when the Cuerdale hoard was found in Lancashire, though the Anglo-Saxon Staffordshire Hoard, found in 2009, is larger.
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The Frome Hoard is a hoard of 52,503 Roman coins found in April 2010, by metal detectorist Dave Crisp near Frome in Somerset, England. The coins were contained in a ceramic pot 45 cm (18 in) in diameter, and date from AD 253 to 305. Most of the coins are made from debased silver or bronze. The hoard is one of the largest ever found in Britain, and is also important as it contains the largest group ever found of coins issued during the reign of Carausius. The Museum of Somerset in Taunton, using a grant from the National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF), acquired the hoard in 2011 for a value of £320,250.
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The Bredon Hill Hoard is a hoard of 3,784 debased silver Roman coins discovered in June 2011 by two metal detectorists on Bredon Hill in Worcestershire, approximately 400 metres north of Kemerton Camp, an Iron Age hill fort. The coins were found in a clay pot that had been buried around the middle of the 4th century in a Roman villa, identified by the subsequent archaeological excavation. The coins include the reigns of sixteen different emperors during the mid to late 3rd century, and are the largest hoard of Roman coins to have been discovered in Worcestershire to date.
The Silverdale Hoard is a collection of over 200 pieces of silver jewellery and coins discovered near Silverdale, Lancashire, England, in September 2011. The items were deposited together in and under a lead container buried about 16 inches (41 cm) underground which was found in a field by a metal detectorist. It is believed to date to around AD 900, a time of intense conflict between the Anglo-Saxons and the Danish settlers of northern England. The hoard is one of the largest Viking hoards ever discovered in the UK. It has been purchased by Lancashire Museums Service and has been displayed at Lancaster City Museum and the Museum of Lancashire in Preston. It is particularly significant for its inclusion of a coin stamped with the name of a previously unknown Viking ruler.
The Grouville Hoard is a hoard of an estimated 70,000 late Iron Age (Celtic) and Roman coins reported in June 2012. They were discovered by metal detectorists Reg Mead and Richard Miles in a field at an undisclosed location in the parish of Grouville on the east side of Jersey in the Channel Islands. It is the largest hoard ever found in Jersey, and the first major archaeological find made by metal detectorists in the island.
Castle Rings is a univallate hill fort in the parish of Donhead St Mary in Wiltshire, England. The site is a Scheduled Ancient Monument. Castle Rings has been dated to the Iron Age and is at an altitude of 228 metres (748 ft) upon Upper Greensand sandstone beds. The bulk of the fort enclosure lies within the boundaries of Donhead St Mary parish but some of the outlying earthworks are in the neighbouring Sedgehill and Semley parish. In the mid-1980s a metal detectorist unearthed a hoard of stater coins of the Durotriges tribe within the hill fort.
This page lists major events of 2019 in archaeology.
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