A British couple thought they were doing routine yard work during lockdown.
They had no idea they were about to uncover a treasure that would make history.
And this Hampshire couple hit gold in their garden and now they’re sitting on a fortune that museums couldn’t touch.
Fence repair uncovers 500-year-old royal treasure
The discovery reads like something out of a movie script. Back in April 2020, a Hampshire couple was fixing fence posts in their Milford on Sea garden when the husband noticed something odd in a chunk of clay-heavy soil.¹
What appeared to be flat pieces of metal turned out to be far more valuable. Their teenage son cleaned off the dirt at the outdoor spigot, and the family watched coins from the Tudor era appear before their eyes.¹
"In total, they recovered 64 coins," coin specialist David Guest told Fox News Digital.¹ "A further six coins were found by archaeologists in Oct. 2021."¹
The cache contains 70 gold and silver coins minted across more than a century. The earliest date to the reign of Henry VI in the 1420s, while the newest were struck under Henry VIII in the 1530s — spanning the rules of Edward IV and Henry VII as well.²
But what makes this hoard truly remarkable is what’s stamped on some of those coins. "Four kings, two queens (Katherine of Aragon and Jane Seymour) and one cardinal are named on coins in the hoard," Guest explained.²
British Museum coin experts said some of the Henry VIII coins "also, separately, feature the initials of three of his wives – Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour."³ This decision to put wives’ initials on coinage was called "very strange" and unprecedented.³ Henry started this practice after he reorganized England’s currency with Cardinal Wolsey in 1526, and stopped after Jane Seymour died giving birth to his desperately wanted male heir.³
The coins tell a story of terror and survival
The timing of this burial wasn’t random. Guest said the hoard was almost certainly concealed "during the tumultuous first phase of the English Reformation when Henry VIII was dissolving England’s ancient monasteries and appropriating much of the wealth of the Catholic Church."²
The late 1530s were among the most dangerous years in English history for anyone with wealth. Between 1536 and 1540, Henry VIII shut down nearly 800 monasteries, seized their lands, and executed abbots who resisted.⁴ Monks, wealthy merchants, and landowners lived in constant fear their assets would be next.
At the time these coins were buried, their total value was 26 pounds, 5 shillings and 5-1/2 pence — the equivalent of about £14,000 in today’s money.⁵ Guest noted that in rural England during the 1530s, the average property price was £25.²
Whoever buried this fortune was wealthy and terrified. They were hiding more than the cost of a house in gold, probably hoping to retrieve it once the danger passed. They never came back.
The hoard’s pristine condition suggests these weren’t working coins being spent daily. Someone was squirreling away their life savings as Henry’s dissolution campaign turned their world upside down.
Museums wanted it but couldn’t afford it — and the couple wins big
Here’s where the story takes a modern twist that shows how dysfunctional Britain’s treasure laws have become.
Under the UK’s Treasure Act 1996, finders must report potential treasure to authorities within 14 days.⁶ If declared treasure, it legally belongs to the Crown, and museums get first crack at purchasing it.⁶
The coins were officially declared treasure. Museums had their chance. But there was one problem — it was 2020, and Britain’s museums were bleeding money during the pandemic.
No museum stepped up to buy the hoard. The British Museum, which usually saves these finds "for the nation," passed.⁷ So did every other institution with deep enough pockets.
The treasure was "disclaimed" and returned to the couple who found it.⁷ They get to keep the whole thing and sell it themselves.
The coins will hit the auction block in Zurich, Switzerland on November 5, 2025. The pre-sale estimate is more than £230,000 — roughly $308,000.¹
But Guest is confident the final price will blow past that number. "[The hoard] is also remarkable for the very high state of preservation of the majority of the coins," he said.² "This makes them very attractive to the current market."²
"I am very confident that the total price realized will be significantly more than the pre-sale estimate," Guest added.²
He’s got good reason for that confidence. The rare coin market is on fire right now, with collectors treating historical coins as inflation hedges.⁸ Gold prices are projected to potentially hit $3,000 per troy ounce by the end of 2025.⁸
The pandemic garden discovery boom
This hoard is part of a broader phenomenon. The 2020 lockdowns turned thousands of Brits into accidental treasure hunters.
More than 47,000 archaeological finds were recorded with Britain’s Portable Antiquities Scheme in 2020, with 6,251 reported during the March-to-May lockdown when metal detecting was prohibited.⁹ People stuck at home started digging in their own backyards — and found centuries of buried history.
The British Museum’s treasure registrar noted people were "spending more time in their gardens, resulting in completely unexpected archaeological discoveries."⁹
Other 2020 garden finds included 50 apartheid-era South African gold Krugerrands discovered in Milton Keynes, and a Roman furniture fitting with a remarkably preserved face of the god Oceanus.¹⁰
But the New Forest Tudor hoard stands out for its royal connections and historical importance. Gold hoards from this period are rare. "You don’t get these big gold hoards very often from this period," said Ian Richardson, the British Museum’s treasure registrar.⁹
The couple who made this discovery has chosen to remain anonymous. They’re smart to keep quiet — a £230,000+ windfall attracts attention.
But their lucky find during a pandemic fence repair is about to make someone very wealthy at auction. And it’s a reminder that beneath England’s gardens lies a fortune in forgotten history, buried by people who never imagined their terror would become someone else’s treasure five centuries later.
¹ Andrea Margolis, "Couple stunned as Tudor-era treasure surfaces beneath their backyard garden," Fox News, October 14, 2025.
² Ibid.
³ Ashley Cowie, "47,000 U.K. Pandemic Finds, But This Tudor Coin Hoard Is King!," Ancient Origins, December 11, 2020.
⁴ "Dissolution of the Monasteries," World History Encyclopedia, May 13, 2020.
⁵ "Weeding uproats Tudor gold coin hoard," The History Blog.
⁶ "Tudor Treasure Trove: Hampshire Couple’s £230k Coin Find Illuminates History and Ignites Precious Metals Market," FinancialContent, September 29, 2025.
⁷ Ibid.
⁸ Ibid.
⁹ Ashley Cowie, "47,000 U.K. Pandemic Finds, But This Tudor Coin Hoard Is King!," Ancient Origins, December 11, 2020.
¹⁰ "Tudor Coins Discovered in Family Garden," B and G Coins, December 9, 2020.
