England’s Worcestershire county is raising funds to acquire a 2,000-year old trove of Iron Age and Roman gold coins that turned up last year in Leigh and Bransford. Dubbed the Worcestershire Conquest Hoard, the cache of 1,368 coins—reportedly worth over £100,000 ($125,000)—was discovered by civilians during a construction project in 2023. The Worcestershire coroner declared it a treasure in June.
Although the hoard is still awaiting its official valuation, the Worcestershire Heritage, Art & Museums charity announced this week that it’s raising £6,000 ($7,600) to acquire the historic relics for public enjoyment. The remaining £94,000 ($119,300) will most likely come from grants.
“Local fundraising is extremely important in this process, as national funding bodies want proof of the need and desire to keep the find in the place of its discovery,” Helen Large, Worcestershire Museum audience manager, told me via email. “I’m pleased to say the response locally to the fundraising has been overwhelming and the messages of support for keeping the Hoard in Worcestershire truly heartwarming.”
Within two days of launching, the campaign had amassed about 90 percent of its goal.
This is the third such hoard to appear in the surrounding area over the past 25 years. In 1999, 434 silver coins and 38 shards of pottery surfaced near Chaddesley Corbett; and in 2011, two people using metal detectors found a clay pot containing 3,784 coins in Bredon Hill. Worcestershire county officials managed to acquire both of those discoveries soon after they were found. But, while comparatively average in quantity, this particular trove has caused a frenzy, on account of the distinct period that it hails from. University College London professor Murray Andrews called the Worcestershire Conquest Hoard “the most miraculous thing I’ve seen over the last 100 years.”
Chair of the Joint Museums Committee, Councillor Karen May. Photo: Worcestershire City Council.
The coins all turned up within a single ceramic pot that experts believe was buried in 55 C.E., “during a brief moment in time when Worcestershire lay right at the edge of an expanding Empire,” a press release from Worcestershire county noted. The Romans, of course, conquered England around 75 C.E., and retained power until 410 C.E..
That makes this find perhaps the largest hoard of the Roman Conquest period ever unearthed in Britain. Most of its contents are silver denarii minted between 157 B.C.E. and 54 C.E., just before the start of the much-maligned emperor Nero’s reign. Its sole gold coin is an Iron Age stater, minted for the local Dobunni tribe between 20 and 45 C.E. The pot itself, meanwhile, was probably fired in the kilns of the nearby Malvern Hills.
The coins likely made their way England in the pockets of Roman soldiers. But, how did they end up in the ground? Even in its heyday, a deposit this size would have been valuable. The dominant theory is that this was the savings of a local farmer who made his fortune selling livestock and grain to the encroaching Roman forces.
On the off chance the country’s campaign comes up short, the long-lost farmer’s treasure will revert back to those who found it, or owner of the land on which it was found. However, it appears that this hoard’s fate is sealed.