Treasure seekers struck lucky last year with hundreds of discoveries of potentially precious artefacts recorded across England and Wales. A haul of 908 treasure finds were reported to coroners across the two countries last year, according to the latest Ministry of Justice (MoJ) figures.
That was up from 803 in 2020, when successive lockdowns will have limited the opportunities for people to be out on the hunt for historical gems. The MoJ figures do not contain details of how each treasure case was found, although separate figures show the vast majority are generally unearthed by metal detectorists.
The hobby, whereby people roam fields with metal detectors that can identify metal under the ground, has been popularised in recent years by the BBC comedy Detectorists. The show stars Mackenzie Crook and Toby Jones as two members of the Danebury Metal Detecting Club in the fictional Essex town of the same name.
