What to do if you find treasure in your garden: From an old bit of wood and golden hoards found in West Berkshire, we go behind the scenes at Newbury’s museum
There are countless stories of buried treasure - and West Berkshire can claim a few of them.
There’s the bronze age stash of gold bracelets found in Lambourn during a metal detecting rally on Crow Down.
There’s the finely worked late bronze aged axe head found among a pile of other Bronze Age tools in Yattenden in 1876 when a country house was built on Yattenden Park.
And more recently, but a lot less blingy, there’s an ancient piece of wood, which was dug up in Boxford.
In 2023 Historic England revealed that the Boxford timber was more than 6,000 years old - making it the oldest decoratively carved wood in Britain. So the same age as the mysterious Silbury Hill in Wiltshire, less than 20 miles away.
Laser scanning and archaeological illustration showed regular cut grooves and signs of working on several different sides. Two different dating techniques were eventually applied.
Dendrochronology, or tree-ring dating, could not establish a match for the sequence seen in the timber, but radiocarbon measurements were successfully obtained from two single annual tree-rings.
A treasure trove is an amount of money or coin, gold, silver, plate, or bullion found hidden underground or in places such as cellars or attics, where the treasure seems old enough for it to be presumed that the true owner is dead and the heirs undiscoverable. An archaeological find of treasure trove is known as a hoard.
So what is the law relating to treasure? In England and Wales, such finds are regulated by the Treasure Act 1996.
Strictly, any item washed ashore from a ship, whether wrecked or not, constitutes ‘wreck’ under the law. Such goods belong to whoever had title to them before they fell into the sea. Where the goods are washed up as the result of a shipwreck, they must be declared to the receiver of the wreck, by the person finding them, within 28 days. The receiver may subsequently pass them back to the finder (if the owner cannot be found). Otherwise, a payment for the salvage of the goods may be payable by the receiver to the finder.
As ship wrecks are not likely in land locked West Berkshire, the position relating to buried treasure is completely different. If something has been found buried, is made substantially of gold or silver and its owners or their heirs are unknown, it will be classed as ‘treasure’.
In some instances, the pre-1996 requirement that such items had to have been buried with the intention that they would be recovered still remains.
Discoveries of treasure must be reported to the local coroner and it is a criminal offence not to report them. It is also necessary to report any finds to the landowner. The coroner will decide on the fate of the treasure and the finder is entitled to a finder’s fee if the find is ruled to be treasure. In such cases, ownership passes to the Crown.
In the case of the old bit of wood, Derek Fawcett, who found it, reported it to the council archeology team.
Then Historic England preserved it with a waxy material called polyethylene glycol, followed by freeze-drying. Once this lengthy process was complete, arrangements could be made for the wood to be transported back to West Berkshire.
Nigel Foot is West Berkshire’s executive portfolio holder for culture, leisure, sport and countryside.
He said: “It is hard to overstate the international significance of the Boxford wood carving.
“Of course, we are thrilled to be able to display the wooden carving in the West Berkshire Museum, just five miles from Boxford, where it had been resting for all those years.”
West Berkshire Museum is a treasure trove of local history.
Some of the items on show have been found by or donated to the museum and the first step on the way to getting a spot in one of the cabinets is to get in touch with the council’s archeology team.
So what happens if you are lucky enough to dig up a Viking sword while doing the veg patch?
The Portable Antiquities Scheme is a national voluntary project to encourage the reporting of archaeological objects found by the public.
“These finds offer an important way of understanding our past, made more valuable when we know their context or provenance,” said Marie Louise Kerr, the museum’s curator.
“We would ask you to get in touch with the finds liaison officer at the council, who will record the finds and it helps us build a picture of the area.
“It doesn’t mean the museum keeps stuff. It just helps us build a picture of what has been happening in the area. If we are seeing lots of buckles and belts for example, does that mean a road? Or if lots of coins are found, has a person hidden it for some reason? All the finds tell a story. It’s the site at which the find is made that is important.”
There is a set of wooden stocks on display, used in the past for meting out justice in Newbury town square, although Nigel, being the consummate politician will not be drawn on whether he would vote for their return.
Woolly mammoth tusks found in a quarry in Thatcham are also on display, harking back even further than the old bit of wood.
“Mammoth tusks have been dug up here, including a section two feet long [recovered during excavations at the Sewage Works in April, 1959],” said Thatcham Historical Society.
“And there is another, four feet long [recovered from a gravel pit off Lower Way in November, 1979]. Other relics found locally include the remains of hippopotami which swam in the ancient river and reindeer which roamed the higher ground.”
The layers of history fascinate Ms Kerr.
“It’s amazing to think these creatures were wandering around West Berkshire,” she added.
The information is recorded on the historic environment record. It is the primary index of the physical remains of past human activity in the unitary authority.
These remains might be prehistoric settlements that are buried out of sight or they might be comparatively recent upstanding structures like Second World War pillboxes.
The HER database has entries for nationally important sites such as hillforts, but also for more commonplace buildings like farms, pubs and schools. Monuments can be as long as a road or canal, or as localised as the findspot of a flint axe.
Because new excavations and surveys are often taking place linked to development or research, the HER is always being added to.
The West Berkshire Museum in Newbury, is open Wednesday – Sunday, 10am to 4pm. Entry is free, but donations are welcomed.
