Do you remember the sunny weather that marked much of the first lockdown in March-June last year? As I write now, in the chill of mid-January, those balmy temperatures are a distant memory – but they not only gave spirits a much-needed lift, they also prompted a flurry of archaeological discoveries, the British Museum’s Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) has announced. Although metal-detecting was among the outdoor activities banned during lockdown, and many research excavations scheduled for this period had to be cancelled or postponed, a new avenue of archaeological opportunity opened rather closer to home: people were spending much more time in their gardens. Of the more than 47,000 finds recorded by the PAS in 2020, 6,251 (more than an eighth) of these were made between March and May, and many stemmed from housebound horticulturalists digging in their flowerbeds and vegetable patches.
Some of these discoveries were highlighted at the launch of the latest PAS annual report – among them, an intriguing and regionally important Tudor coin hoard. Spanning almost a century, and containing issues from the reigns of four kings, the 64 coins were discovered by a family weeding their garden in the New Forest area. The hoard’s contents – which are being catalogued by Dr Barrie Cook, curator of medieval and early modern coins at the British Museum, ahead of the find’s coroner’s inquest under the 1996 Treasure Act – comprise one silver and 63 gold coins. The earliest of them reflect the upheaval of the period known as the Wars of the Roses (1455-1487), during which the rival Houses of York and Lancaster vied for possession of the English throne, and the crown changed hands many times. These coins include a single gold noble of the Lancastrian king Henry VI (r. 1422-1461 and 1470-1471), as well as four large gold coins known as ryals or rose nobles issued by Edward IV (r. 1461-1470 and 1471-1483), who twice deposed Henry VI, seizing power for his own Yorkist cause.
Spanning almost a century, and containing issues from the reigns of four kings, the 64-coin hoard was discovered by a family weeding their garden.
