Treasure Trove

 The Snettisham Hoard.....

The Great Torc

Imagine this.  A state of uncertainty, even crisis.  You don't trust the bankers (despite recent hikes the interest rate is still negligible for deposits).  You actually don't trust anyone, as a succession of leaders have proved themselves to be self-serving charlatans without clear ideas....  You have in your possession a certain amount of hard won valuables.  A handful of money and some expensive, if impractical jewellery.  There is a war in Europe and there is talk of an invasion.  You don't want to lose everything. You want to preserve something for your children.  What you gonna do? 

Of course, you dig a hole.  Quite a deep one, and you place your best pieces in a container deep in the hole.  You then infill some of the cavity.  Then you place some of your lesser treasures in another container, place that in the hole and cover everything with soil.  Job done.

Well, near where I now live, there was some unusual activity a few years before Julius Caesar dreamed of extending the Roman Empire beyond the shores of the EU.  Someone (or some persons) decided to bury several crates or containers of treasure (jewellery, ornaments and other various pieces of gold and valuable metal alloys).  And, perhaps in order to confuse potential robbers, the best items were buried well beneath some of the lesser pieces.

It is not known who was responsible for this primitive exercise in safe depositing, nor why such an amount was interred, but when it was unearthed it constituted the single greatest Iron Age treasure trove (I love that otherwise obsolete use of Latin, now still the root of trovare - to find - in Italian) discovered in this part of the world.  One theory is that the rulers of the Iceni Tribe felt the need to conceal much of their important ritual precious metal pieces beneath their treasury.

Fast forward to 1948.  By now, not surprisingly, those who buried the above treasures, or who might have heard rumours of the same, are well dead. But post-war agricultural developments meant that a certain field was no longer planted with lavender and a tractor was employed to drag a modern deep plough across the plot.  The driver (Mr R L Williams) found his plough had snagged some metallic objects, which, on inspection were deemed to be part of an old brass bedstead, and so they were piled at the edge of the field.

The roadside today (no treasure visible from the bus)

A passing expert (who just happened by) thought further excavation was merited, and a number of gold and silver artefacts, including bracelets, torcs - or torques - (a kind of open necklace) and some coins came to light.

Picture courtesy of the British Museum

In 1950, the tractor driver (on this occasion Mr Tom Rout) hit the jackpot and turned up further articles of value, including the finest torc of all.

Tom F Rout

With the help of box scrapers and metal detectors, further work was carried out in 1964, 1968, 1973 and 1989.   The combined finds from this field constituted the first large group of Iron Age metal work to be found in England and Wales which included coinage, and this enabled the finds to be dated between 100 BCE and 25 BCE, with the probable time of concealment being between 25 BCE and 10 CE.  

To quote the magazine Current Archaeology, from May 2007, The best evidence for the dating of the hoards comes from the coins, of which there were some 234 in all: indeed five of the hoards contained coins. They are all Celtic coins, of the early, uninscribed variety, the majority being Gallo-Belgic imports, as well as some early British types. These early Gallo-Belgic are dated to around 70 BC.....

Why is this of interest or importance?  Well one simple reason is related to an examination currently set for those aspiring to British Citizenship. The other day the Times newspaper published ten questions extracted from this test:  look closely at question 3.....

 

and then look at the answer printed below.  Then compare with the evidence from the Snettisham Hoard (among other Iron Age finds.....)  I am so very glad I am not interested in becoming a British Citizen!

Anyway..... The Snettisham Treasure is a wonder in itself.  Who buried it and why, and how it remained undiscovered for so long remain mysteries.  But the fact that metal workers some two thousand years ago or more were so skilled is to be marvelled at, if only because in this so much more civilised age  some people still understand so little of what it means to be civilised....  And it wasn't just one person.  The Great Torc, for example, is made of strands of twisted alloy that would have taken three to twine.

At the present time, the Snettisham Hoard is divided between Norwich Castle Museum and The British Museum, where it lies alongside other indigenous treasures as the Mildenhall Great Dish and the Sutton Hoo Helmet, not to mention a few bits and pieces looted from the rest of the world....

There were, it should be mentioned, other finds in this area, such as the Snettisham Jeweller's Hoard, buried around 155 CE and discovered in 1985.

And then there are the hordes (Tangles) of Knot that flock across the Wash at exceptional high tides.  (Excuse the pun....)

For most people, however, it is the Iron Age Treasure that is the Torc of the town, and justifiably so..... 

Though, for me, there is only one treasure, and that is personal.....

Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:

But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:

For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

St Matthew, Chapter 6, verses 19 - 21

Imagine this. A state of financial crisis. You don't trust the bankers. You actually don't trust anyone, as a succession of politicians have proved themselves to be self-serving and corrupt with scrambled fantasies.... You have earned a few savings and are paying off a mortgage loan. There is a war in Europe and there is talk of an invasion. There is also talk of austerity, of tax hikes and service cuts.  And there is  rampant inflation. You don't want to lose everything. You want to preserve something for your children. 

What are you going to do?

Our House

Our house

Is a very, very, very fine house

Our House, 1905

This is our house. Welcome! It was built in 1883 by John Palmer Benstead (7th June 1828 - 24th February 1887). John was the illegitimate son of Elizabeth Benstead, who married Richard Folker, a farm labourer, in 1834. In the 1841 census John Benstead is recorded as a farm labourer, living alone in Heacham. He then worked for Thomas Savory at the Old Bakehouse in Ladies' Walk and married Mary Ann, his employer's daughter, in 1851. They had seven sons and four daughters, though one of these was stillborn.

Mary Ann, and John, had a bakery in the Market Square from 1851 until Alma House was built, at a cost of £900. In the 1860s and 70s the population of Snettisham was 1,233 and there were four other bakers in the village

Our House, today

When John died the business remained in the family. The photograph of the house in 1905 shows Frederick and Emma Benstead with their young son Bob. Apparently he took over the business from his brother Tony some time before 1930, and maintained it until his retirement in 1967/68.  He married Nellie in the 1920s and had a daughter, Mollie, in 1927 and a son, Alan, in 1930.  

Bob Benstead made bread, cakes and pastries, using a coal fired oven in what is now the kitchen.  

The kitchen as it is today - formerly the bakehouse - some of the ironwork is original.

Bob delivered to Snettisham and the neighbouring villages of Sedgeford, Fring, Ingoldisthorpe and Dersingham.  He had a cart and a donkey, which lived in this shed:

There was no inside kitchen in those days, nor a toilet or a bathroom - the outside earth toilet being beyond the donkey shed, with a large and a small wooden seat. The first bathroom was put in in around 1960.

This room, now a dining room, was the main living room:

And this, now my study, was the front parlour:

Many years ago, when Graham Nash was living in Laurel Canyon at Joni Mitchell's house, she brought home some flowers one day, and he composed a song, which he entitled Our House:

Our house

Is a very, very, very fine house (very, very fine house)

With two cats in the yard

Life used to be so hard

Now everything is easy

'Cause of you

And our

I'll light the fire

While you place the flowers

In the vase

That you bought today

I suspect it loses something in translation, and I should point out that we actually have three cats, but the sentiment (and it really is rather sentimental) fits our very fine house......

Of course we are nowhere near Laurel Canyon, but Snettisham is a fine village:

With, as you can just see in the top left of the board, pride in the Snettisham Hoard, or Snettisham Treasure, which consists of a series of discoveries of Iron Age precious metal, found in the area between 1948 and 1973. The hoard consists of metal, jet and over 150 gold/silver/copper alloy torc fragments, over 70 of which form complete torcs, dating from 70BC. Probably the most famous item from the hoard is the Great Torc from Snettisham, which is now held by the British Museum. Though the origins are unknown, it is of a high enough quality to have been royal treasure of the Iceni.....

The village has a fine church - St Mary's - which, according to Nikolaus Pevsner, is perhaps the most exciting Decorated (ie English Gothic from between 1290 and 1350) parish church in Norfolk, with its 175 ft tall spire (rebuilt in 1895) and its fabulous six-light window in the west front.....

The village also has a handsome 17th century Old Hall, built, like our house, of carstone (quarried just up the road) with brick dressings:

And, in a discreet way that puts most other villages to shame, there is a wonderful book shop, named after the Great Torc:

Perhaps inspired by this, and possibly as an indication that life is healthy here so we don't need a village defibrillator, the telephone kiosk now hosts a book swap:

And though there is no longer a Post Office (the post van visits four days a week), the main post box is a priority one, especially decorated by the WI for the Platinum Jubilee:

And in case you were wondering, there are two pubs, one of which dates back to the construction of the church, as apparently it was raised to accommodate the masons involved in that holy work. 

In addition, in the spirit of Mr Mainwaring, the village has an Old Bank, though it is now a family run restaurant, named The Good Food Guide Best Local Restaurant 2019 for the whole of Britain and soon after was also listed in the Michelin Guide.

The village is near the sea, just a 45 minute walk from the Wash, over 60 metre high Wild Ken Hill (renowned for its rewilding and for supporting the careers of Chris Packham and Michaela Strachan.....) and across the marsh, which used to be (and probably will be again) under the sea.

Indeed, although the weather this year has been dry and warm, there have been times when the heavens have opened:

Our garden, earlier this year

And the proximity of the sea, and the unpredictability of the weather, have taken their toll:

We moved here at the beginning of 2021, and our house is currently our home, for which I have no regret.

I won't claim to be a big fan of Graham Nash, but I recognise his temporary joy in living with Joni Mitchell. I have temporary joy in living with Amanda, though, as with everything, it won't last.

I cannot claim to be a big fan of Madness, either, though that depends on how you define the term. I can now sympathise with Mr Rochester when he fell for Jane Eyre, and I can empathise with Grace Poole (the stout, middle-aged, red-haired seamstress who works as a servant at Thornfield Hall, who is secretly the nursemaid and prison guard for the insane Bertha Mason.....) - though that is not the only reason I drink.....

But I do like Suggs, and Madness's Our House is a hymn of joy:

Our house, in the middle of our street

Our house, in the middle of our

I remember way back then

When everything was true and when

We would have such a very good time

Such a fine time, such a happy time

And I remember how we'd play

Simply waste the day away

Then we'd say nothing would come between us

Two dreamers

Daniel Woodgate / Graham Mcpherson / Lee Thompson / Christopher Foreman / Michael Barson / Cathal Smyth / Mark Bedford

Amanda, stuck at the top of our stairs

I'll light the fire

You place the flowers

In the vase

That you bought today

Staring at the fire

For hours and hours

While I listen to you

Play your love songs

All night long

For me

Only for me

Graham Nash

From Amanda's window

Our house, was our castle and our keep

Our house, in the middle of our street

Our house, that was where we used to sleep

Our house, in the middle of our street

Our house

Our House

Madness