A FIVE-HOUR search in atrocious weather by two treasure hunters ended with the unearthing of one of the biggest collection of medieval silver coins ever found in Scotland.
Derek McLennan and Gus Paterson used metal detectors to discover the coins in a field at Twynholm, near Kirkcudbright in Dumfries and Galloway.
The men discovered 322 coins, which are said to carry images of various monarchs of the time.
They will show them to local residents before handing them over to Scotland's Treasure Trove Unit. The unit aims to ensure significant or important finds are kept for the nation and go on show in museums.
Mr McLennan said they suspected the field would yield something interesting, but were on the verge of giving up when they first made the discovery.
He said: "We had done quite a lot of research and had targeted that particular area. We had searched several fields around it before we stumbled across it.
"We had been searching for probably about five hours in atrocious weather with rain and 60mph gales.
"We were both feeling rather scunnered in the last field before we headed for the car."
On the first day of looking they netted about 40 coins as darkness fell, but subsequent return trips to the site took the overall total to 322.
Mr McLennan said: "I went in one direction and Gus went in the other and Gus was lucky enough to hit the first two coins.
"There was jubilation all round as I'm sure you can imagine."
He said they quickly realised what they had discovered.
He added: "Although it's a hobby we are serious about it so we immediately recognised that it was medieval hammered coins. It was actually two stuck together, which is highly unusual, so that led us to believe there was a possible hoard of coins in the area and we just started searching."
In a discovery back in July last year, a Roman coin hoard was found at the site of the Belladrum music festival in the Highlands.
Some of the 36 denarii were discovered by Eric Soane using a metal detector during a clean up of discarded tent pegs after the 2012 Belladrum.
A dig led by archaeologist Dr Fraser Hunter uncovered the rest of what was the first Roman coin hoard to be discovered in the Beauly area.
The number of archaeological finds handed over to the Treasure Trove Unit more than doubled in the space of one year, it emerged in the summer.
There were 316 cases of historical items being handed over to the Treasure Trove Unit in 2012-13, up from 152 the previous year.
The finders were given payments ranging from £5 to £10,000 as a reward, depending on the value of the items.
These payments totalled £36,510 in 2012-13, with most of them being for a few hundred pounds.
As well as finds by members of the public, the annual report on Treasure Trove in Scotland revealed there were 194 cases where professional archaeologists handed over items unearthed on digs and excavations - with 134 of these resulting in artefacts being given to museums.
Some of the items that were found include a hoard of 219 Roman coins discovered in Ashkirk, in the Scottish Borders, which have been allocated to the Scottish Borders Museums Service.
In 2011, David Booth, chief ranger at Blair Drummond Safari Park, found four golden neck ornaments, or torcs, near Stirling, which had been in the ground for an estimated 2000 years.
He received a payment of £462,000 - the largest reward at the time.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article