Almost 700,000 objects have been discovered in the UK and recorded by the British Museum, and out of those artifacts, Worcestershire has the second highest amount classified as treasure.
Worcestershire County Council councillor Dan Boatright-Greene, who happens to have a PHD in Archaeology, says he is ‘hardly surprised’ by the data as the ‘county has some of the richest history in the country’.
Councillor Boatright-Greene said: “It’s hardly surprising that we are in the top couple of places in the country to find treasure because we have some of the richest history in the UK.
“So long as people report what they find and do it legally, that’s how we find some of the best sites.
“Metal detectorists definitely have a place and need to report what they find and it’s great to see that they are because we are ranked in the top and not to mention that if you find a hoard you get to keep half.”
The Government defines treasure as an item that is more than 300 years old and contains at least 10% gold or silver.
The British Museum has recorded 3,465 objects found in Worcestershire, of which 58.1% were treasure.
This ranks Worcestershire as the third best place in the UK to find treasure behind the Scottish Borders (with 60.68% of finds being treasure) and Lancashire (with 78.34% of finds being treasure).
Some of the biggest finds in the county include in 1999 when 434 silver coins and 38 shards of pottery were found near Chaddesley Corbett and again in 2011 when two metal detectorists from Redditch found a clay pot full of 3,784 coins on Bredon Hill.
More recently a hoard of Roman coins estimated to be worth £100,000 was discovered at a building site in the Leigh and Bransford area, west of Worcester in 2023.
Speaking at the time, Dr Murray Andrews, lecturer in British archaeology at University College London, said: “It’s the most miraculous thing I’ve seen over the last 100 years.
“It’s an important piece of archaeology.
“It tells us about what was happening here 2000 years ago, when the Malvern hills were maybe the boundary of the Roman Empire.”