Housewife finds £250,000 treasure with metal detector

A housewife has discovered a 15th-century gold treasure valued at £250,000 with a metal detector.
The find is thought to be part of a high-quality reliquary or pendant, and depicts the Holy Trinity. It is the first item of any real worth that Mary Hannaby has found in seven years of combing fields and beaches.
Mrs Hannaby, 57, from Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, made the discovery while out on one of her regular six-hour Sunday detecting walks with her son Michael, a 33 year-old wood carver.
Under the Treasure Act of 1996, finders must report potential treasure such as gold and silver objects more than 300 years old. Finders are offered the market value for their discoveries which museums have first option to buy.
Roger Bland, head of treasure at the British Museum, describes the item – which at 2.8cm by 2.3cm, is barely larger than a postage stamp – as an “important find”, and said he regrets that the museum does not currently have the funds to buy it.
As one of only three of its kind to have survived, the find could be worth even more than £250,000, and its engraving is being compared to that of the Middleham Jewel, which sold at auction for £1.3million in 1986 and was later resold to the Yorkshire Museum for £2.5million.
Sotheby’s will auction it in London on July 9.
The treasure had been buried four inches below the ground for around 500 years – despite repeated ploughing and previous attempts by the Hannabys to unearth treasure on the same patch of arable field between Ashridge and Great Gaddesden.

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