The Westbury Sub-Mendip Roman Hoard

The Westbury Sub-Mendip Roman Hoard

- John Philpotts

The Beginning – AD 193

Sometime during mid to late AD 193, in the southwest corner of the Roman province of Britannia, a citizen was compelled to bury a hoard consisting of 188 silver denarii. Quite a sum, equivalent in value to around £4,500 in modern-day currency, based on the fact that a denarius is thought to have been worth around £25. A Roman soldier would have been paid around 300 denarii per year – this may not seem much but then one should consider that there were far fewer things to spend your money on back in Roman times! What compelled them to bury the hoard? Was it for safekeeping while they headed to market in nearby Wells? Or had they been asked to head north and help with the trouble caused by the Caledonians near Hadrian’s Wall? Perhaps they were even stolen by a mischievous slave who was then caught, sold and could never return to recover his loot. We can only surmise and probably never will know for sure, but we do know that the coins were not recovered until some 1,822 years after being deposited.

The Find – May 2016

Detectorist, Daniel Stevenson, was searching a small field in Somerset back in May 2016. The search had been arranged by a small club and everyone was really excited, due to the known history of extensive Roman occupation in the area. The search areas were identified and everyone headed out into the fields, detectors at the ready.