South Portoon Farm is a 17th-century longhouse situated in the small village of West Dorset, in the south of England. Its current owners, Betty and Robert Fooks, had been thinking about renovating their old kitchen for some time. They wanted to gain space between the floor and the ceiling and what they ended up discovering was a treasure of 1,000 gold and silver coins.
The couple bought the farmhouse in 2019 and since then began an extensive renovation process. In the kitchen, for example, they removed the modern concrete floor and excavated a little more than half a meter to achieve greater separation to the first floor of the property.
After removing all the concrete, they realized that in some areas there were old slabs underneath. Still, there was another patch of bare earth that they decided to dig with a pick and shovel by torchlight on an October afternoon. And there was the dazzling fortune.
The collection they found (and which was auctioned by Duke’s of Dorchester on April 23, reaching a price of 71,000 euros) contained a wide variety that included everything from a modest sixpence to a coveted gold coin worth 20 shillings.
The faces of the English monarchs Edward VI, Mary Bloodie Mary Tudor and her husband Philip II of Spain, Elizabeth I, James I and Charles I, who ruled successively between 1547 and 1649, are represented. All the pieces, which have been identified by the British Museum experts, were probably buried inside a glazed ceramic bowl between 1642 and 1644.
The container, as explained by the auction house itself in a statement, broke during the excavations or before. “This is a 400-year-old house, so there was a lot of work to do. We removed all the floors and ceilings to leave its stone walls again,” explained Betty Fooks.
“One night, I was with the kids and my husband was digging with a pickaxe when he called to say they had found something. He put all the coins in a bucket. If we hadn’t gone down to the ground, they would still be hiding there. I guess the person who left them tried to get them back but he never had the chance,” he adds.
The couple reported their discovery to the authorities and what is now known as the Poorton treasure – hidden during the first English civil war (1642-1646) between the parliamentary forces and the royalists – ended up going up for auction for pieces with a price initial 40,000 euros. It almost doubled its price.
