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1887 East Harptree Hoard! 138 Year Old Provenance!! 5/5 Strike 5/5 Surfaces! Premium & RARE reverse type! RIC 7A (Antioch) East Harptree is a small village some 16 miles south-west of Bath and it was the site of the discovery of about 1500 largely mint-condition Roman silver coins all dating from the 4th century which is known as the 'Harptree Hoard'. It was discovered on the land of Mr William Kettlewell of Harptree Court - used as the filming location for Series 3 and 4 ofThe Great British Bake-Off. During the dry summer of 1887 the water supply to the village of East Harptree had run very low and it was decided to search for an additional spring on the Mendip Hills that could be conducted into the mains pipes to supplement the supply. In November of that year, while searching for the source of a spring in Harptree Woods, a labourer called William Currell put his pick into a vessel full of Roman coins. The jar was 6 inches (15cm) below the surface in swampy ground. The vessel, which was made of pewter or some other white metal, had already been broken into several pieces. The vessel was subsequently restored, as far as possible to its original form by Mr Talbot Ready. The accompanying woodcut gives some idea of its shape. It was about 23.5cms tall, almost 18cms at its diameter and 10cms at the base. Later, the neck of the vessel was discovered by Mrs Kettlewell. It was almost 4cms long with an inside diameter of just over 3cms and showed a trace of originally having had some sort of a handle attached to it. It contained 1,496 coins, five ingots of silver and a ring set with an intaglio. The coins covered the period between the reigns of Constantine the Great and Gratian - from 306 until 383 AD. The silver ring is set with a carnelian on which is engraved with the figure of Mars bearing a trophy and spear. The silver ingots are of varying sizes and do not seem to have been adjusted to any regularly graduated weight, although they obviously had some monetary value. They were probably acquired in some business deal by the original owner of the hoard. Mr Kettlewell subsequently made the hoard available for study at the British Museum and it was written up by John Evans for the Numismatic Chronicle of 1888, pages 22-46. The British Museum was given 25 of the most interesting coins and the remainder were returned to the owner. Mr Kettlewell's son, Colonel Kettlewell, gave the jug and a portion of the hoard to the local church (to be put on display) from where they were subsequently stolen. Many years later the rest of the hoard - nearly 1200 coins - was given to the father of the consignor by Mr Kettlewell's son, and they have remained in their packaging ever since.