Pigeons help Metal detector enthusiasts find English Civil War coins

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Hungry pigeons led to the discovery of silver coins spanning three monarchs and a turbulent time for the county.

The hoard was declared treasure by a coroner on Tuesday and is likely to be displayed at Nottingham Castle Museum.

Mr Meats said: "I picked something up and turned to Stuart, who also had one. We concentrated on a small area, about the size of a snooker table."

Their find was made up of 11 coins from the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, one from her successor James I and seven from King James I. That covers a period of nearly a century up to 1649.

That was a time when the English Civil War was raging and Oliver Cromwell's troops were active against Royalists in the county.

Nottingham resident Mr Meats believes the coins - a small fortune at the time - were probably buried by a Royalist who was concerned about the fighting coming closer. Nobody knows why he failed to return to collect his cash.

It was found when birds distracted two metal detector enthusiasts, who had permission to search farm fields north of Newark.
One of them, Martin Meats said: "We were searching when we saw flock after flock of wood pigeons go onto a farmer's crop of oil seed rape. They are like locusts and so we went up to get them off the crops.

"They went into woods and we thought it was a long way to go back to where we were - so started looking there.

Within moments, 58-year-old Mr Meats's detector pinged, just as colleague Stuart Toseland's did the same.

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