Friday 2 January 2015

The Lenborough Hoard

The BBC is now reporting on the finding of a major late Anglo-Saxon (to early Norman) hoard near Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire ("Thousands of ancient coins discovered in Buckinghamshire field", 2 January 2015).
Paul Coleman from the Weekend Wanderers Detecting Club discovered more than 5,000 coins buried inside a lead bucket two feet under a field near Aylesbury.
This has earlier been reported as a find made at Lenborough ("Silver coins worth £1m found on farm", Buckingham Today 31 December 2014). Paul Barford has drawn attention to the fact that the find was made at the location of a deserted medieval village, and a Medieval Manor House (see website of metal-detecting group: "Tons of history here, DMV site, Medieval Manor house and windmill site, Roman treasure found at adjacent village and much more....").

Two feet underground does not sound like a surface find. What stratigraphical and contextual information has been lost? (For a discussion of these issues see the forum article in Papers of the Institute of Archaeology 2010.)

The hoard will be considered under The Treasure Act. The FLO from the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) was present for part of the removal. The local paper reported:
Archaeologist Ros Tyrrell, the Finds Liaison Officer for Bucks, who is based at the Bucks County Museum in Aylesbury, was at the rally to record any finds made on the day, when the major hoard of more than 5,251½ Anglo Saxon silver coins was uncovered. Miss Tyrrell was immediately called over to help excavate the coins.
We look forward to seeing the publication of the excavation as well as the finds in due course.


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