Eye/Leominster Hoard: Metal detectorist ‘finds £3 million treasure hoard, gives landowner three coins and hides most of it’

Welsh raids on England
(80 km journey to a field)

A metal detectorist who dug up £3m worth of ancient buried treasure is on trial at Worcester Crown Court, accused of concealing the discovery of a ninth-century hoard and selling some items on the black market (Mark Cardwell, 'Metal detectorist ‘finds £3 million treasure hoard, gives landowner three coins and hides most of it’ Independent 6th October 2019). The discovery is reported to have taken place in June 2015 on farmland near Eye Court Farm, near Leominster, in Herefordshire. The court was told on Friday how at some stage George Powell, 38, from Newport had only handed over three coins he found to the owner of the land and those were “not particularly valuable” and not coins from the era of King Alfred. The hoard was found in a field belonging to Yvonne Conod, who took the stand in court on Friday as a witness:

She said Mr Powell had asked her if he could use his metal detector on her field in 2015, and she agreed [...]. “The first time he came to the door there was nobody with him. He had a car and he asked if he could go into my field. I said ‘yes that’s fine’. “I did not think there was anything wrong about it. I saw his car there on a number of other occasions. When he came with the coins he was on his own. He said he had found something and he gave me three coins. “I never saw the other man until a long time after. The man said he thought they found something of value and I never thought any more about it.” She said at one point she saw photos of the jewellery found but was not sure who had shown them to her. 

This sounds a little iffy. It's not clear who'd told her they'd "found something valuable", the other "man"  - that'd be Layton  Davies, 51, of Pontypridd -  or was it the person who she had given the search and take permission?  Elsewhere in the somewhat garbled reporting of the case it says: "she saw his car on several occasions, and said Mr Powell at one point came to her door to tell her he had found “something valuable” in her field, but heard nothing more of it".

I think we all have a bit of a problem understanding that a guest on somebody's property says they've been on it and "found something valuable" that they've taken away, and the property owner admits she "never thought any more about it". What's going on there? She saw photos of jewellery they'd taken from her property (gold ring and silver bracelet) and just wipes it from her mind? Weird.

The jury also heard from Mrs Conod’s son Mark, a tenant farmer who farms Eye Court Farm, consisting of 208 acres of land belonging to Lord Cawley.  He told the court Mr Powell also approached him to ask if he could use his detector at the farm, which is used for dairy and crops including maize, in May 2015.  Mr Conod said Mr Powell dropped off some coins he said he found with his wife Amanda, and told them he had found something of value on his mother’s land. He claimed Mr Powell had sent photos of a bracelet and ring, but never showed him the items and did not disclose the 300 coins they had found. [...] “He said he had reported them to a museum. I presume they were in a museum. He did not produce them.  “He said they [the ring and bracelet] were Anglo Saxon and he was excited. I did not know if they were valuable, I didn’t have a clue. It was mum’s field where he said he found it.” 

Did Lord Cawley give permission to search and take? Were the coins Powell gave back to Mark Conod passed on to the landowner? So, from this Powell seems to be in the habit of "dropping off coins he's found" and showing photos around - one wonders what story he span to get access to the fields if the disappearance of a gold ring and silver bracelet roused no suspicions in two adults  ("I work for a museum"?).

Conod is not a common surname and you can find a bit about the family from the Internet which I'll not share here (and from one of them, the foreign reader can find out how to pronounce 'Leominster').