NHER 18149 (Find Spot record) - Bronze Age metal hoard

6 April 1759.
Found in a ditch by children.
Late Bronze Age hoard.
Socketed axes etc.
Formerly wrongly noted under NHER 8102.
Information from (S1).
E. Rose (NAU), 8 June 1982.

This discovery was reported at a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries of London on 10 May 1759. The information came from a letter that had been sent by W. Arderon F.R.S of Norwich. See transcription of original minutes (S2). This meeting had been attended by the Rev. William Stukeley and his diary entry for the day (which mentions the Hellesdon hoard) is reproduced in (S3).

A sketch by W. Arderon (S4) depicts a "Roman brass instrument" which is almost certainly one of the objects mentioned in his letter. It may be the implement Stukely recorded in his diary as "…a sacrificing knife, sharp on both edges…", although it should be noted that he may have been wrong to associate this object with the Hellesdon hoard. The meeting minutes suggest that this "knife" may actually be an object that Arderon had seen in the possession of someone from Norwich but was not actually from this site.

According to (S3) the actual finds from this site were subsequently exhibited at a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries of London on 17 May 1759. Amongst them was a "bronze gouge" that Stukely had drawn in his diary (Vol xvii, 53), although at the time he noted that it was an "odd thing" whose use he did not know.
P. Watkins (HES), 24 August 2016.