How gold and silver treasure hoard was found in Newbury

A Thatcham treasure hunter who was part of a detectorists group that found a hoard of Roman and celtic gold and silver is talking to visitors at West Berks Museum on Saturday (July 20), showing her finds and spreading her message that “nobody should give up on any location no matter if it’s been done before”.

Meet the Detectorists will run between 10.15am and 3.15pm as part of the Festival of Archaeology.

Go along to this free drop-in event and learn how the reporting of found archaeological objects by members of the public can rewrite our knowledge of the human story.

Jana Little’s group History Hunters gained permission to search on a local estate that had a history of significant finds.

Despite some of the older members advising that the fields had been ‘done to death’ over the years, the group pushed ahead with the search.

“The usual finds presented themselves – the occasional button, piece of lead or a random metal bit, letting your imagination to run wild,” said Ms Little.

The fields weren’t giving much but one of the team managed to find a battered hammer.

Entering the last field, one of the hunters declared: “I have a good feeling about this.”

Digging in, another detectorist pulled out a beautiful Roman republican denarius, then another.

“Wherever he went, more denari filled his finds pouch,” Ms Little recalled.

He later pulled out a perfect gold stater – a coin of Kentish King Verica. “This can’t get any better,” he declared as he added the stater to his pod filled by now with nine Republican denarii.

“Only three steps away, he had exactly the same signal and out popped yet another gold stater, but this time with beautiful maple leaf motif.

Then Ms Little herself got lucky and pulled out a Quinctius 112BC denari, followed by a “lovely Mark Anthony”.

“The last three hours of the day were filled with excited joy each time someone dug yet another silver or gold coin,” said Ms Little.

“Disbelieving, the team called the finds liaison officer only to leave another voicemail.

“I am sure that the FLO was probably enjoying his day off and wasn’t expecting over excited bunch of detectorists hounding him.”

In the end, the count ended on having 13 gold staters and 25 republican denari (Fig. 13).

The hoard of gold and silver coins is currently being recorded by the Archeologist.

The locality of the field is in close proximity to a known celtic settlement so it is most likely someone’s property had been buried to retrieve it later when needed, but was never recovered.

“The modern detectors have changed,” said Ms Little.

“They go deeper, so a site done 15 years ago might have been detected but will never be fully empty.

“There is so much land around our beautiful historic Newbury which I can guarantee are filled with treasures.

“I do a lot of historical research so I can pinpoint these locations, however, gaining permission is on these fields is near impossible.

“ If you are interested in talking about detecting do come to Newbury Museum this Saturday.

“I will show my finds, talk about the National Metal Detecting Council, and if you’re lucky and own a field, maybe I will tell you where to dig.”