Archaeology

Eaton Coppice coin hoard

Root clearance at Eaton Coppice exposed a small earthenware pot closed with a lead plate.

No public image is currently linked to this place.

What this record tells us

Root clearance at Eaton Coppice exposed a small earthenware pot closed with a lead plate. A contemporary report described about 160 gold and silver coins, some attributed to King John. The account survives through the Scots Magazine and Hugh Manville’s later inventory. No reliable modern catalogue of the coins is known from the evidence assembled here.

Eaton Hill is a defensible general locator, not the recovered position of the pot. The reported royal attribution is doubtful. A newspaper of 1786 remembered an Eaton find as Elizabethan silver but placed it only seven years earlier. That discrepancy is not sufficient evidence for a separate 1779 hoard. The original owner, burial date and subsequent dispersal remain uncertain.

How this record is evidenced

Documented discovery

Contemporary Scots Magazine notice (November 1757), recovered in Manville’s numismatic inventory. The occurrence of a reported hoard is documented; King John attribution is doubtful.

Published research

The investigation details are drawn from Leominster Heritage research from cited published sources; the original publication or report remains the authoritative source.

Project interpretation

The clean title and short public summary have been prepared by Leominster Heritage and remain separate from the wording of the source record.

Provisional or requiring verification

The open questions below identify the details that have not yet been securely established.

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Eaton Coppice coin hoard

Finds and discovery record · Late October 1757 · Approximate position

Root clearance at Eaton Coppice exposed a small earthenware pot closed with a lead plate.

Approximate position

Locality only. Coordinates represent the centre of the stated grid square for display only; they are not an object findspot.

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Source and further reading

Leominster Heritage research from cited published sources

Hugh E. Manville, 1993, additions and corrections to Thompson’s Inventory and Brown and Dolley’s Coin Hoards, British Numismatic Journal 63, especially p. 97, no. 151a. Quotes Scots Magazine 19, November 1757, p. 606.

Murray Andrews, 2017, Newspapers and numismatics: forgotten medieval and Tudor coin finds from West Midlands periodicals, 1786–1905, West Midlands Archaeology 59, pp. 21–34, especially p. 24.

Entry-specific references: S01 p. 97, no. 151a; S02 p. 24

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Open questions

  1. A contemporary estate plan showing Eaton Coppice; surviving coins or an early inventory.

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