Couple rip up kitchen floor and find life changing amount of cash
Imagine if you had £60,000 sitting underneath your kitchen floor.
That's exactly what Robert and Becky Fooks discovered was hiding under the concrete in their kitchen in the middle of home renovations. The couple were digging out the concrete in order to create more height in the kitchen of their 17th-century cottage home near Bridport, Dorset, when they stumbled across
Robert was digging 2ft under the concrete with a pickaxe and in the process, he unearthed a smashed glazed pottery bowl that was full to the brim with 400-year-old gold and silver coins. In total, the agricultural engineer counted 1,029 coins, including rare King James I and King Charles I examples.
The hoard of coins is believed to have been buried between 1642 and 1644 during the English Civil War for safekeeping by the owner of the house at the time, who never returned to collect them.
Robert and Becky reported their discovery to the local finds liaison officer and the collection was then sent to the British Museum for identification. After that, the coins were sold by Duke's Auctioneers of Dorchester, Dorset, for a combined hammer price of £60,000.
With fees added on, the total amount paid for the hoard was £78,000, more than double the £35,000 pre-sale estimate it was given. The most valuable lot was a 1635 King Charles I gold crown that fetched £5,000, while a Charles I silver shilling sold for £3,200 and a James I gold laurel coin was sold for £2,700.
Becky, a 43-year-old NHS health visitor, said: "The auction was brilliant, a very exciting experience and a bit of a whirlwind. We are delighted with the outcome. It started off with the gold coins going for four-figure sums and then it settled down and finished on a high with the Charles I silver coins. The building work at the house is still ongoing so we will use some of the money to pay off some debts and we will also have a few treats with it as well."
The couple bought the cottage in 2019 but didn't move in at first while they carried out some renovation work. In October that year, they found the coins under the kitchen, but the identification process took several years to complete.
Becky explained: "It is a 400-year-old house so there was lots of work to do. We were taking all the floors and ceilings out and took it back to its stone walls. We decided to lower the ground floor to give us more ceiling height. One evening, I was with the children and my husband was digging with a pick axe when he called to say they'd found something. He put all the coins in a bucket and brought them home to me.
"If we hadn't lowered the floor they would still be hidden there. It is amazing and fascinating (to find the hoard). I presume they were buried during the English Civil War and the person intended to retrieve them but never got the chance."
Julian Smith, specialist at Duke's Auctioneers, described the auction as "fantastic" and said the couple watched the sale with smiles on their faces, stating they were "over the moon" with the result. He added: "I knew the gold coins would sell for high prices but the silver James I coins did very well and bidding was really strong on them. Their condition was pretty good and you could see good detail and that made a big difference with the collectors who were bidding."
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