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April 27 , 2002
This meant the owner had deliberately hidden it with
the intention of coming back at some stage. Such finds
become the property of the Crown and museums can buy
them at full market value, the sum passing to the finder.
This year marks the tenth anniversary of the discovery,
acquired by the British Museum in 1994.
If trying to get your head round events from the early
fifth century or 869AD was tough enough, our next stop
was simply mind blowing.
Not far from the field where the hoard was found was
a bowl-like dip of land to the side of Eye Road.
“This site was occupied some 350,000 years ago
by Palaeolithic people, not Homo Sapiens, but pre Neanderthal.
There have been two Ice Ages since they were around,”
Julie explained.
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| Rural idyll – the picturesque Suffolk
village of Hoxne. |
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A memorial cross in the middle of an oilseed
rape field at Hoxxne marks the spot where legend
has it St Edmund was tied to an oak tree and beheaded.
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“The climate of the period was warmer than now
so the vegetation was probably mixed oak forest and
open parkland. A local landowner, John Frere, found
stone tools here in 1797 and the remains of rhino, bison,
elephant, horse and deer have also been found. Until
a few years ago it was the oldest recorded inhabited
site in Britain. I just wish we could dig up the road.
Who knows what’s under here?” my guide laughed.
Sediment laid down an ancient lake at this site resulted
in brick earth, and over our shoulders was a slice of
modern history, WA Banham and Son brickworks.
“It was begun in the 18th century, and up until
the last war bricks were fired in large earth clamps.
The kilns whose remains still stand weren’t built
until the end of the war.
“You can see Banham bricks in a recognisable style,
in walls throughout the village,” she added.
A little way down the road we start to take a public
footpath alongside a field and suddenly the countryside
just swept before us as if it had been landscaped. There
was a reason for that – it had been.
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