COIN HOARD

HOARD OF HENRY I TYPE XV COINS

This report concerns a find of 178 silver pennies. The coins were found on four separate occasions between April 20th, 2008 and April 15th, 2009.

All of the coins were found with metal detectors, spread around a single field and found between 50mm and 300mm in depth. The distribution is consistent with a single hoard, dispersed by ploughing. Coins of Henry I (1100-35) are rare at the best of times, and the facts that all of the coins are of a single type and that there is no other recorded evidence of Norman activity on the site all points towards the interpretation of all the coins as a single hoard, deposited towards the end of the reign of Henry I, although the exact dating of BMC type xv remains a matter of debate. All of the coins are silver pennies, although six of them have been cut in half for use of halfpennies. One of the halfpennies and two of the pennies are partially fragmented, to varying degrees.

A list of mints represented in the hoard:

London, Bury St Edmunds, Canterbury, Chester, Exeter, Gloucester, Hereford, Ipswich, Lincoln, Northampton, Norwich, Oxford, Thetford, Winchester, York, Uncertain

The coins have not been subjected to metallurgical analysis, as there is sufficient existing data to indicate that all coins of this period are of good silver, well above the threshold of 10% stipulated by the Treasure Act (1996). There is no evidence associated with the find from which the original ownership of the hoard can be traced. On all the key criteria, therefore, it is my recommendation that this should be considered as a prima facie case of Treasure under the terms of the Treasure Act (1996).

Gareth Williams
Curator of Early Medieval Coinage
The British Museum

A fuller catalogue is available on request.