Historical coins found under floor sell for £60,000

Trove found under couple’s home thought to have been depositied by landowner during the English Civil War

The coins sold for £60,000 at auction (Duke's Auctioneers )

A couple was able to pay off part of their mortgage after unearthing a hoard of historical gold and silver coins underneath their home.

Robert and Becky Fooks of South Poorton, Dorset, discovered more than 1,000 coins dating back to the 16th and 17th centuries - which have now sold for £60,000.

Mr Fooks was digging with a pickaxe by torchlight in October 2019 when he found the coins in a pottery bowl buried in a bare earth floor.

Mr Fooks was digging with a pickaxe by torchlight in October 2019 when he found the coins in a pottery bowl (Duke's Auctioneers )

The British Museum has speculated they were deposited early in the English Civil War (1642-51) by a landowner trying to keep his wealth safe.

Mrs Fooks, a 43-year-old NHS health visitor, told the Dorset Echo: “It is a 400 year old house so there was lots of work to do.

“We were taking all the floors and ceilings out and took it back to its stone walls. One evening, I was with the children and my husband was digging with a pick axe when he called to say they’ve found something.

The British Museum has speculated they were deposited early in the English Civil War (Duke's Auctioneers )

“He put all the coins in a bucket and brought them home to me. If we hadn’t lowered the floor they would still be hidden there. It is amazing and fascinating to find the hoard.”

In 2022, a different couple sold more than 260 ancient gold coins for £754,000 after finding them under their kitchen floor.

The collection was hidden inside a pot under the 18th-century floorboards of the anonymous couple’s home in Ellerby, East Yorkshire, in 2019, and dates back from 1610 to 1727.

Mrs Fooks said it was ‘amazing’ and ‘fascinating’ to find the hoard (Duke's Auctioneers )

Spink & Son, the auctioneers who sold the coins, called the final sale price “absolutely extraordinary” after they were predicted to fetch £200,000 to £250,000.

After attracting worldwide attention, the collection was sold to dozens of buyers in individual lots by the auctioneers in London, totalling £754,000.

The auction house called the collection “one of the largest hoards of 18th-century English gold coins ever found in Britain”.