Strange But True Crime: The buried Herefordshire Hoard surrounded by treachery and greed

This is a story of treachery, secrecy and greed which led to two friends ending up in jail and a mystery about buried coins.

Let me take you back to April 2022 – a treasure-trove of gold and silver is laid out on a small table in a back office in London.

For centuries the coins and jewellery lay undisturbed, buried in the Herefordshire countryside by a Viking warrior in the Ninth Century.

I have spent years following its journey from a hole in the ground to the fringes of the criminal underworld.

This story is laid out in full on the Strange But True Crime podcast on BBC Sounds.

Let me explain though what it is like to come face-to-face with precious, history-altering artefacts, wanted by criminals and historians alike.

In that small office in London, I was about to wear actual treasure – gold jewellery, made for a king, queen or noble.

Most of the people who have put the ring on their finger or the bracelet around their wrists have been dead for more than 1,000 years.

The Herefordshire Hoard, as it has become known, is magnificent and it has been valued at more than £3m.

Among the treasure is a huge gold ring, a gold bracelet with a dragon’s head clasp, a pendant made of crystal rock, a silver ingot and hundreds of silver coins.

The people who discovered it could have become very wealthy indeed but, instead, they are in prison.

However, only 31 of an estimated 300 coins of the discovery have been recovered.

So the big question is, where is the rest of the hoard?

The gold and silver was hidden under the earth for about 11 centuries when Welsh metal detectorists George Powell and Layton Davies discovered it in a field near Leominster in June 2015.

The hoard is believed to have been taken from the Anglo-Saxons by Vikings and buried for safekeeping at about 878 AD.

Legally, Powell and Davies, from Pontypridd, should have declared it.

If they had done so, they could have become very wealthy men.

Instead, they kept it, sold it to dealers and ended up in prison.

I have been a reporter for 25 years but this is one of the most intriguing stories I have ever covered.

Over the years, I had to keep quiet as the police investigation carried on.

I received anonymous tip-offs and one of the criminals even sent me text messages from prison.

Three years after the trial, in April 2022, I was behind the scenes at the British Museum where the hoard was taken to be studied and valued.

The jewellery is beautiful but it is the coins that have changed what we know about the history of England.

One of them is double-headed, showing two rulers of England in the Ninth Century.

Alfred the Great, who ruled Wessex, is on one side and Ceolwulf II, of Mercia, is on the other.

Alfred the Great is famous, we know a lot about him, but Ceolwulf II is a mystery, he appears to disappear without a trace at about AD879.

Historians believe that he was written out of history by Alfred’s followers.

Thanks to the double-headed coin, we now know that Ceolwulf was as important as Alfred, that they ruled side by side for many years.

The jewellery was carefully wrapped in tissue paper but stored in a plastic cake box.

Despite the rather mundane container, I found myself holding my breath as it was uncovered.

It has definitely got the wow factor. It looks like the buried treasure in children’s stories, shiny gold and gems.

As I slipped the ring on my finger, I was amazed at how heavy and big it was.

This is a ring designed to be worn over the glove of a king or a nobleman, held out for people to bow before.

I was wearing a blue nitrile glove, like you see in hospitals, but it still felt amazing.

What the experts still don’t know is who it belonged to – and who stole it and buried it in the ground all those years ago.

And what about the rest of the coins?

Police believe they are in the hands of organised crime gangs around the world so the hunt for the missing treasure continues.