Image: The West Norfolk Hoard, Norfolk Museums Service. Image David Kirkham
Norwich Castle Museum acquires 129 early medieval gold coins with £217,200 National Heritage Memorial Fund support, now displayed in reopened gallery.
Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery has acquired the largest collection of seventh-century gold coins found in Britain.
The acquisition of the West Norfolk Hoard was made possible with a £217,200 grant from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and additional support totalling £101,000 from Art Fund and The Wolfson Foundation.
The hoard contains 129 gold coins, representing the first coins made and used in Europe following the fall of the Roman empire. The hoard contains coins which predate the first gold coinage made in Anglo-Saxon England.
The discovery surpasses previous finds from this period, including the 101 coins discovered at Crondall in Hampshire in 1828 and the 37 gold coins found in the Sutton Hoo ship burial in Suffolk in 1939.
Following its declaration as Treasure by the Coroner’s court in November 2021, the hoard has been placed on display in Norwich Castle’s newly reopened Anglo-Saxon and Viking Gallery.
Additional funding partners included the V&A Purchase Grant Fund and Friends of the Norwich Museums.
Simon Thurley, chair of the National Heritage Memorial Fund, said the acquisition will keep the hoard intact, “in the county in which it was buried and publicly accessible for everyone to enjoy”.
Two metal detectorists discovered the hoard in a West Norfolk field between 2014 and 2020. While one finder worked legally with archaeological authorities, another sold finds illegally and subsequently served a prison term for theft. Both finders and the landowner have requested anonymity.
The display coincides with the reopening of Norwich Castle’s Anglo-Saxon and Viking Gallery, closed for several years during building works to transform the adjacent Norman Keep. The hoard joins East Anglia’s renowned Anglo-Saxon finds, including the Sutton Hoo ship burial and the Staffordshire hoard discovered in 2009.
