Detectorist Seeks The Lost Treasure Of Bad King John

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Rising tides swept away King John's baggage carts - and treasure - in 1216. Now, a local man has become obsessed with a quest to find the hoard, using some unconventional methods.



Somewhere near here in 1216, 'Bad King John' - a monarch so incompetent and evil that his name is still preserved in folklore, films and nursery rhymes - was running from his enemies. When his army tried to cross the mudscapes of the tidal estuary that Britons call the Wash, rising waters caught his baggage train. The wagons and their contents, including the king's treasure, were lost.

More than 800 years later, King John's hoard has not been found. But it still lures believers. And one local man thinks he has found its location.

Edward Morris knows the marsh and its dangers well. (Because of a contractual obligation with the company that owns the land where he believes the treasure lies, he can't use his real name in the press; his first name in this story has been changed). He found his first clue more than seven years ago while metal detecting with his son. "All of a sudden, we got this massive signal: the machine started beeping really loud, and we started to dig," he recalled. "We must have dug down about four feet from the side of a dyke... and I retrieved an object about the size of a golf ball and covered in rust."

Morris didn't look closely at the object again for three months. But then, he said, he met a tarot card reader who identified his dead mother at his shoulder - and reminded Morris of his own childhood fall through an abandoned mill. She added something else that drew him back to his find.

"She basically said that what I'm looking for is magnificent, out of this world, but until I work the puzzle out I won't know what I'm looking for," Morris said. He felt a mysterious pull to the drawer where the object lay untouched and covered in rust, and his journey into obsession began.

Read more : http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20170926-the-lost-jewels-of-bad-king-john