Mitton Hoard

Mitton Hoard
	The Mitton Hoard on display at Clitheroe Castle
Material	silver
Created	Medieval
Discovered	Mitton, Clitheroe; 53°50′47″N2°26′32″W / 53.84639°N 2.44222°W Coordinates: 53°50′47″N2°26′32″W / 53.84639°N 2.44222°W
Present location	Clitheroe Castle Museum

Last updated April 25, 2019

The Mitton Hoard is a hoard of silver coins found near Clitheroe in Lancashire, England, in 2006 or 2009. The hoard is now in Clitheroe Castle Museum. The documented treasure consisted of 11 silver coins or parts of coins.

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 later recovery by the hoarder; hoarders sometimes died or were unable to return for other reasons before retrieving the hoard, and these surviving hoards might then be uncovered much later by metal detector hobbyists, members of the public, and archaeologists.

Clitheroe is a town and civil parish in the Borough of Ribble Valley in Lancashire, England, approximately 34 miles (55 km) northwest of Manchester. It is near the Forest of Bowland, and is often used as a base for tourists visiting the area. In 2016, Clitheroe Built Up Area had an estimated population of 15,517.

Lancashire is a ceremonial county in North West England. The administrative centre is Preston. The county has a population of 1,449,300 and an area of 1,189 square miles (3,080 km²). People from Lancashire are known as Lancastrians.

Local history

Mitton is divided into two villages, Great Mitton and Little Mitton. This find was first detected to the west of Great Mitton between the River Hodder and the River Ribble. The find was near a bend in the River Hodder.^[1] One source says that these coins were found in 2006^[2] whilst another says that the coins were found using a metal detector on Monday 7 September 2009.^[3] The treasure was declared to be treasure and it was obtained by the museum services. The hoard is now on display in the Clitheroe Castle Museum.^[2]

Great Mitton is a village and a civil parish in the Ribble Valley, Lancashire, England. It is separated from the civil parish of Little Mitton by the River Ribble, both lie about three miles from the town of Clitheroe. The combined population of both civil parishes at the 2011 census was 266. In total, Great and Little Mitton cover less than 2000 acres of the Forest of Bowland, making it the smallest township in the Forest. Historically, the village is part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, but was transferred to Lancashire for administrative purposes on 1 April 1974, under the provisions of the Local Government Act 1972.

Little Mitton is a civil parish in the Ribble Valley district, in the county of Lancashire, England. In 2001 the population of the civil parish of Little Mitton was 42, but by the time of the census 2011 population details had been absorbed in the civil parish of Great Mitton. Little Mitton has a grade II* listed house called Mitton Hall. There is also Little Mitton Hall in Little Mitton.

The River Hodder is a river in Lancashire, England. The river is a County Biological Heritage Site.

The hoard

The hoard can be dated from the date of the last coin that was included in the hoard and this came from the 1420s. Three of the coins were the oldest and they dated to the reign of Edward I or Edward II. The English silver is 97.5% pure whilst the French fragments are 80% pure silver. With the exception of the farthing these coins represent all the small value coins. It is thought that these coins could all be in circulation at the same time.^[3] The hoard was probably either accidentally lost, or deliberately hidden, in the late 1420s.^[4]

Artefacts

The documented treasure consisted of 11 silver coins or coin fragments. The coins were:^[3]

Three pennies from Edward I or Edward II of England
Two half-groats from Edward III of England
A halfpenny from Richard II of England
Three groats from Henry VI of England
There are also two small fragments made for Gaucher V de Châtillon between 1313 and 1322.^[3] Gaucher V de Châtillon held one of five highest officers of state as he was the Constable of France from 1302 to 1329.

Edward I, also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England from 1272 to 1307. Before his accession to the throne, he was commonly referred to as The Lord Edward. The first son of Henry III, Edward was involved from an early age in the political intrigues of his father's reign, which included an outright rebellion by the English barons. In 1259, he briefly sided with a baronial reform movement, supporting the Provisions of Oxford. After reconciliation with his father, however, he remained loyal throughout the subsequent armed conflict, known as the Second Barons' War. After the Battle of Lewes, Edward was hostage to the rebellious barons, but escaped after a few months and joined the fight against Simon de Montfort. Montfort was defeated at the Battle of Evesham in 1265, and within two years the rebellion was extinguished. With England pacified, Edward joined the Ninth Crusade to the Holy Land. The crusade accomplished little, and Edward was on his way home in 1272 when he was informed that his father had died. Making a slow return, he reached England in 1274 and was crowned at Westminster Abbey on 19 August.

Edward II, also called Edward of Carnarvon, was King of England from 1307 until he was deposed in January 1327. The fourth son of Edward I, Edward became the heir apparent to the throne following the death of his elder brother Alphonso. Beginning in 1300, Edward accompanied his father on campaigns to pacify Scotland, and in 1306 was knighted in a grand ceremony at Westminster Abbey. Following his father's death, Edward succeeded to the throne in 1307. He married Isabella, the daughter of the powerful King Philip IV of France, in 1308, as part of a long-running effort to resolve tensions between the English and French crowns.

Edward III of England 14th-century King of England and Duke of Aquitaine

Edward III was King of England and Lord of Ireland from January 1327 until his death; he is noted for his military success and for restoring royal authority after the disastrous and unorthodox reign of his father, Edward II. Edward III transformed the Kingdom of England into one of the most formidable military powers in Europe. His long reign of 50 years was the second longest in medieval England and saw vital developments in legislation and government, in particular the evolution of the English parliament, as well as the ravages of the Black Death.

Note: Eleven of the coins are documented however there are more than eleven coins on display at the Clitheroe Castle Museum.^[5]

Related Research Articles

The Forest of Bowland, also known as the Bowland Fells, is an area of barren gritstone fells, deep valleys and peat moorland, mostly in north-east Lancashire, England with a small part in North Yorkshire. It is a western spur of the Pennines and was once described as the "Switzerland of England".

The River Ribble runs through North Yorkshire and Lancashire in Northern England. It starts close to the Ribblehead Viaduct in North Yorkshire, and is one of the few that start in the Yorkshire Dales and flow westwards towards the sea.

The Cuerdale Hoard is a hoard of more than 8,600 items, including silver coins, English and Carolingian jewellery, hacksilver and ingots. It was discovered on 15 May 1840 on the southern bank of a bend of the River Ribble, in an area called Cuerdale near Preston, Lancashire, England. The Cuerdale Hoard is one of the largest Viking silver hoards ever found, four times larger than its nearest rival in Britain or Ireland, according to Richard Hall. In weight and number of pieces, it is second only to the Spillings Hoard found on Gotland, Sweden.

The Hoxne Hoard is the largest hoard of late Roman silver and gold discovered in Britain, and the largest collection of gold and silver coins of the fourth and fifth centuries found anywhere within the Roman Empire. It was found by Eric Lawes, a metal detectorist in the village of Hoxne in Suffolk, England in 1992. The hoard consists of 14,865 Roman gold, silver, and bronze coins and approximately 200 items of silver tableware and gold jewellery. The objects are now in the British Museum in London, where the most important pieces and a selection of the rest are on permanent display. In 1993, the Treasure Valuation Committee valued the hoard at £1.75 million.

Guildford Museum is the main museum is in the town of Guildford, Surrey, England. The museum is on Quarry Street, a narrow road lined by pre-1900 cottages running just off the pedestrianised High Street. This main site of the museum forms the gatehouse and annex of Guildford Castle, which the staff help to run. It is run by Guildford Borough Council and has free entry between 11am - 4.45pm on Monday to Saturday. It is closed on Sundays and on Christmas Day.

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.

The Hallaton Treasure, the largest hoard of British Iron Age coins, was discovered in 2000 near Hallaton in southeast Leicestershire, England, by volunteers from the Hallaton Fieldwork Group. The initial find was made by Ken Wallace on 19 November 2000, when he found about 130 coins with a metal detector.

Milton Keynes Hoard Bronze age hoards found in and around Milton Keynes, England

The Milton Keynes Hoard is a hoard of Bronze Age gold found in September 2000 in a field near Monkston in Milton Keynes, England. The hoard consisted of two torcs, three bracelets, and a fragment of bronze rod contained in a pottery vessel. The inclusion of pottery in the find enabled it to be dated to around 1150–800 BC.

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, who ruled Britain independently from 286 to 293 and was the first Roman Emperor to strike coins in Britain. 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.

The Shrewsbury Hoard is a hoard of 9,315 bronze Roman coins discovered by a metal detectorist in a field near Shrewsbury, Shropshire in August 2009. The coins were found in a large pottery storage jar that was buried in about AD 335.

The West Bagborough Hoard is a hoard of 670 Roman coins and 72 pieces of hacksilver found in October 2001 by metal detectorist James Hawkesworth near West Bagborough in Somerset, England.

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 Bitterley Hoard is the largest post medieval / English Civil War Coin Hoard found to date from Shropshire, England. It was discovered on 17 February 2011 by a metal detector user near the village of Bitterley, South Shropshire. The find consists of one gold coin and 137 high denomination silver coins. These were placed within a high quality leather purse which was contained within a pottery vessel called a tyg. The earliest coin was from the reign of Edward VI, the latest from the Bristol Provincial Mint of Charles I, indicating it was buried after early 1644.

Castle Rings is a univallate hill fort in the parish of Donhead St Mary in Wiltshire in England. The fort is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, with a list entry identification number of 1005698. Castle Rings has been dated to the Iron Age and is situated at an altitude of 228 metres (748 ft) upon Upper Greensand sandstone beds. The main bulk of the fort enclosure lies within the boundaries of Donhead St Mary parish but some of the outlying earthworks are situated 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.

The Bedale Hoard is a hoard of forty-eight silver and gold items dating from the late 9th to early 10th century AD and includes necklaces, arm-bands, a sword pommel, hacksilver and ingots. It was discovered on 22 May 2012 in a field near Bedale, North Yorkshire by metal detectorists, and reported via the Portable Antiquities Scheme. Following a successful public funding campaign, the hoard was acquired by the Yorkshire Museum for £50,000.

Clitheroe Castle Museum is located in Clitheroe, Lancashire, England, in the former Steward's House, a Grade II listed building that was built in the 18th century to house the steward of Clitheroe Castle. It is a museum showing the history of the local area.

References

↑ "Mitton Hoard location". OpenStreetMap.
1 2 "Clitheroe Castle Museum". Lancashire.gov.uk. Retrieved 16 September 2009.
1 2 3 4 "Coin hoard BM-193206". Finds.org.uk. Retrieved 16 September 2015.
↑ Ashworth, Susan (2010). Clitheroe Castle Museum. Castle Keep, Museum and Park. Lancashire County Council. p. 17. ISBN 9781857596489.
↑ Picture of the displayed Mitton hoard, Mike Peel, September 2015, Wikimedia Commons

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[map-1] "Mitton Hoard location". OpenStreetMap.

[ccm-2] 1 2 "Clitheroe Castle Museum". Lancashire.gov.uk. Retrieved 16 September 2009.

[find-3] 1 2 3 4 "Coin hoard BM-193206". Finds.org.uk. Retrieved 16 September 2015.

[guidebook-4] Ashworth, Susan (2010). Clitheroe Castle Museum. Castle Keep, Museum and Park. Lancashire County Council. p. 17. ISBN 9781857596489.

[5] Picture of the displayed Mitton hoard, Mike Peel, September 2015, Wikimedia Commons