Crondall Gold

In 1828 near the village of Crondall in Hampshire ('Crondale" at the time), 18 year old Charles Lefroy while on a shooting trip, noticed a group of small gold coins exposed by turf cutters, initially mistaking them for buttons. The hoard contained 98 gold coins, of which 73 were early English 'thrymsas' and 24 of them 'tremisses' from Merovingian Frankia and Frisia. The coins were bought (from Lord Grantley via Baldwins) for Oxford's Ashmolean Museum in 1944, in memory of Sir Arthur Evans. 

The hoard is thought to have been deposited 'perhaps a decade or two' after Sutton Hoo (Abramson 2022, p. 5), in the range of 635 to 650. While the Sutton Hoo purse consisted of Merovingian gold coins, Anglo-Saxon coins are predominant in the Crondall group. The Anglo-Saxon coins in the hoard were mainly struck in Kent and London and three of the coins were unofficial issues made to look like coins. The hoard also contained coin blanks and a contemporary forgery together with a pair of gold and garnet clasps and their attached chains.


Illustration of ornamental clasps with attached chains found in the Crondall Hoard (Akerman 1843)


The Crondall Hoard provides important evidence for the start of English coinage, the first coins to be produced in Britain since the closure of the Roman London Mint. Many of the new coins were modelled on those from France and Rome, but others showed novel designs, suggesting royal or church power. The dating of the coins has been debated, with Sutherland (1948) arguing for a date of deposition in the region of 660-670, while 'C.E.B.' in a review of Sutherland's work argued for a date of deposition of around 620. A current consensus would be in the range of 635 to 650. 

The first description of the contents of the hoard is provided by Akerman (1843) and some of his comments are very entertaining, such as 'executed by persons unskilled in the art of fabricating money, and incapable of forming an intelligible legend'.

Let's take a closer look at two of the coin types found in the hoard, one Merovingian and the other Anglo-Saxon.

Firstly, this imported coin from Quentovic, a short distance across the channel, found in Kent in April 2026. Its bright gold weighs 1.27 g. The type is recorded in various places as Akerman (1843) type 10, Grantley 568, Sutherland Crondall Plate V, p, Belfort 4960, Prou 1125. The obverse read +VVICCO and the reverse reads as DUTTA MONI (the first T presented as an inverted L).

Gold Merovingian tremissis of Quentovic, moneyer Dutta, in as-struck condition, made from the same die pair as example (see below) in the Crondall Hoard, type 10 of Akerman (1843). This coin was found near Gravesend, Kent on 16 April 2026.


Engraving of Quentovic tremissis in Akerman (1843). Akerman commented that 'Quentovic (Quannage) was situated opposite Estaples, near the mouth of the Canche. These coins differ but little from many other barbarous examples engraved in Lelewel and in the Revue Numismatique, and the following are yet more imperfect. Any accurate description of pieces so rude is next to impossible..'

A review of Sutherland's 1948 book commented that, 'It is important also to note the last die-links, those of Wiccus, suggesting as it does that the owner of the treasure had recently been in Gaul.'  


Secondly, here is a coin from the best-represented series in the Crondall Hoard, a native derived Witmen type. The jumbled legend on the reverse is derived from the WITMEN MONETA seen in the earliest members of the series. W and a T are recognisable along with a retrograde MON[]IT together with various less recognisable characters.

Gold thrymsa of derived Witmen type, Sutherland IV.ii, Abramson (2022) var. 1iii. Found near Folkestone, Kent in October 2015, 11 mm, 1.29 g. Twenty-one of the 73 thrymsas in the Crondall Hoard are of the 'Witmen Monita' type, including a number of the more derived forms. This was the commonest coin type in the hoard.


Engraving of 'Witmen Monita' type thrymsa in Akerman (1843). Akerman was not impressed, commenting that, 'Of these coins it would be impossible to give an accurate description with the pen. They are more barbarous than the rest, and would appear to have been executed by persons unskilled in the art of fabricating money, and incapable of forming an intelligible legend.'


The Crondall Hoard exerts a fascination through its place in the origin story for native Anglo-Saxon coinage. Single finds relating to the coin types represented in the hoard have occurred from time to time over the more than two centuries since the hoard's discovery (see Abramson 2022 for details), but continue to be rare and elusive.


References

Abramson, Tony, 2022. Gold coins of Anglo-Saxon England. Shaun Tyas, Donnington. 152 pp.

Akerman, J.Y. 1843. Description of some Merovingian and other Gold Coins discovered in the parish of Crondall, in Hampshire. The Numismatic Chronicle and Journal of the Royal Numismatic Society,

Sutherland, C. H. V. 1948. Anglo-Saxon Gold Coinage in the Light of the Crondall Hoard. 106 pp. and 5 pl  (and see contemporary review at https://www.britnumsoc.org/publications/Digital%20BNJ/pdfs/1945_BNJ_25_29.pdf)  

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