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XIX. Account of some British Coins found near High Wycombe, in Buckinghamshire, in 1827; by John Norris, Esq. in a Letter to Henry Ellis, Esq. F.R.S. Secretary

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 June 2012

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Extract

I beg to trouble you, as Secretary of the Society of Antiquaries (of which I have long been an unworthy member), with drawings of five Coins, which I conceive to be ancient British, and which have been lately found, very accidentally, near High Wycombe, Bucks. These five coins, with six others, were found by a miller's boy upon a place called Keep-hill, in the parish of Chipping Wycombe, about half a mile from the town. The boy was sent to the spot, which is very near the mill, to look after his master's sheep, and happening to take up a flint, to grub at a fresh mole track, two of the coins fell out of a tubular cavity in the flint during the operation, and upon examination, nine more were found within, the whole of which the boy brought to his master's house, where they remained some days, till the boy's father, hearing of the discovery, got possession of them and carried them about for sale. They are of gold, about the tenth of an inch thick, the obverse concave, the reverse convex; they weigh about 3½ pennyweights, and are of the size represented. Tubular flints, similar to the one in which these coins were found, are very common in this stoney soil, and certainly, if a person wished to conceal his treasure, he could hardly hit upon a less suspicious receptacle. There are remains of artificial ditches still visible above Keep-hill, and I think it may fairly be presumed to have been a British strong-hold.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1826

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References

page 299 note a The coins numbered 1, 3, and 5, were purchased by Mr. Norris, and subsequently resented to the British Museum.