UK's richest-ever treasure hoard acquired by the nation for record £4.3m

The extremely rare find, dating back 1,000 years, was dug up by a group of detecting enthusiasts in an unploughed field

A team of seven metal detectorists have sold the UK's richest-ever treasure hoard to the nation for a record-breaking £4.3million.

The extremely rare find, dating back 1,000 years, was dug up by the group of detecting enthusiasts in an unploughed field, in the Chew Valley area of north east Somerset, in January 2019.

The 2,584 silver coins are made up of King Harold II pennies from the end of Anglo-Saxon England and William the Conqueror coins, after the 1066 Norman conquest.

The bulk of the coins were found by detectorists Adam Staples and Lisa Grace, who are believed to have become millionaires through the sale.

Meanwhile the landowner, whose identity is not being revealed, is also entitled to a life-changing 50 per cent of the proceeds, a staggering £2.15million.

Many of the coins are in mint condition and experts say they would have been a substantial amount of money at the time and belonged to an important, wealthy person who probably buried them for safekeeping.

As King Harold's reign only lasted nine months, before he was famously struck in the eye by an arrow at the Battle of Hastings, coins from that period are incredibly rare.

The hoard also contains coins struck by previously-unknown moneyers.

Mr Staples, 48, said of the dig in a BBC interview in 2019: 'We didn't leave the site until we thought we'd got all the coins.

'We had a massive thunder and rainstorm. We were all soaking wet by the time we finished.'

Mr Staples and Ms Grace, 47, had been training five friends on how to use metal detectors when they made the discovery.

The other finders will also receive a share of the proceeds, probably in the tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds.

The hoard is the highest value treasure on record, beating the famous Staffordshire Hoard from 2009 - the biggest collection of buried coins and artefacts discovered in Britain - which was worth £3.3million.

The Chew Valley Hoard, which was reported under the Treasure Act (1996), has been acquired by the South West Heritage Trust after they received a £4.42million grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fund also covering display costs.

This was boosted by £150,000 from Art Fund, and smaller grants from the Friends of The Museum of Somerset and the Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society.

The hoard will go on display at the British Museum on November 26 and will then tour several museums before the Museum of Somerset becomes its permanent home.

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