Posted on 04/22/2005 11:52:08 PM PDT by nickcarraway
When Roger Cole stepped out of his Land-Rover on Haddiscoe Island, near Yarmouth, he put his foot on what he thought was a pile of old Co-op dividend tokens.
On closer inspection, the foreman of the flood defence work site realised they were silver coins and quickly picked up around 200 of them.
An expert from Norfolk Landscape Archaeology (NLA) was called in and found a further 100 in the tracks made by a bulldozer.
The coins are dated between 1550 and 1646, and the theory of NLA finds liaison officer Dr Adrian Marsden, based at The Castle Museum, Norwich, is that they were buried for safety during the English Civil War.
Last night, Mr Cole, 60, of Low Road, Winterton, was celebrating after a Norwich inquest declared the hoard treasure.
It means that he and the landowner will get 50pc shares of the coins' worth once they have been valued and taken up by a museum.
Yarmouth's new £4.7m Time and Tide Museum has already expressed interest in the hoard.
The divorced father of four, who works for Edmund Nuttall, said: "It was in July 2003 when I was taking my men to work that I stepped on them. We were very excited and began scrabbling around putting them in a hard hat. They were very dirty and some were stuck together."
The coins - ranging from old sixpences to half crowns - had been in an earthenware pot exposed when a metre of earth had been removed during the work. The pot had been broken by the bulldozer, resulting in some of the coins spilling out.
Mr Cole, who has never found anything more interesting than old bottles before, said: "The experts say the coins are difficult to value. I might just get enough for a pint or maybe I will be able to pack up work.
"A friend of mine has done some research on the internet and found that similar shilling coins - of which there are 15 in the hoard - can be worth £125 in fair condition."
The coins, currently at the British Museum, will be valued by the London-based treasure valuation committee, and it is thought the sum will run into at least four figures.
Coroner William Armstrong's ruling that the hoard is treasure means that it officially becomes the Crown's property.
It was made after evidence that a descendent of the original owner could not be traced, and that the coins were more than 300 years old.
Mr Marsden said: "The last coin is dated 1646, in the middle of the English Civil War, and it is likely the hoard was buried for safety.
"Norfolk during the civil war was relatively peaceful and there have only been three civil war hoards found in the county. I presume this was some sort of local trouble not historically recorded."
He said the value of the hoard at the time would certainly have amounted to more than a year's wages for a soldier.
Time and Tide curator Rachel Kirk said: "Subject to us being able to get grants, we would certainly be interested in taking the coins."
She said strong connections existed between Yarmouth and the Roundheads, and there was a theory that Oliver Cromwell decided to execute the king in what is known as The Conspiracy Room at the town's Elizabethan House Museum.
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