2011 Silverdale Viking Hoard

It's not often local stories feature across the daily press, but that's just what happened at the end of October 2011, when headlines screamed, "Amateur treasure hunter finds Viking hoard" and the local community and metal detectorists were a-twitter with the excitement of it all. 

The story is that a local man, Darren Webster, made a nationally significant find of some 200+ pieces of Viking era silver, somewhere in the area. The location is being kept a closely guarded secret, as it should be, and the hoard is currently being assessed by experts at the British Museum. More news is promised about their findings in December 2011. 

Meanwhile, what we do now know is that the Vikings were here a thousand years ago. The hoard includes Arab coins and silver bangles, English coins and ingots, and much more. The coins are exciting, and the bangles are just gorgeous! That the find will add a lot to our rudimentary knowledge of Vikings in the area is a certainty. Whether or not we will ever get to see the finds displayed locally is less so, but we can hope.  

UPDATE: The Silverdale hoard will go on display at Lancaster City Museum from October 25 until December 21, 2013, and then move to its new permanent home at the Museum of Lancashire in Preston in February 2014, where it will be on show from February 15 to December 7, 2014, before further research and conservation work takes place. It is fabulous to see it will be staying in Lancashire! 

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