Has a detectorist uncovered part of Charles I’s lost epiphany crown?
The discovery by one man and his metal detector in a Northamptonshire field has been the cause of much interest for the British Museum
18 December 2020 • 6:00am
On January 30 1649, Parliament cut off Charles I’s head. A year later, his state crown was “totally broken and defaced”. Parliament valued it at £1,100, the jewels were sold, the gold melted for coin. Nothing survived – or so it was thought.
In the vaults of the British Museum lies a treasure handed over by a 49-year-old metal detectorist, Kevin Duckett. He had flipped a clod of earth in a Northamptonshire field on a sunny day in 2017 and poking out, “like a partially unwrapped present”, was the gold figure of a king.