# The Trewhiddle Hoard > Unknown Anglo-Saxon silversmiths - 9th century AD, buried c. AD 868 > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/anglo-saxon-silversmiths-9th-century/trewhiddle-hoard-british-museum/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-09-28 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Unknown Anglo-Saxon silversmiths - **Date:** 9th century AD, buried c. AD 868 - **Medium:** Silver, largely undecorated and niello-inlaid, with the chalice bowl gilded internally; one buckle-plate of bronze; a glass terminal ring on the scourge; 114 Anglo-Saxon silver pennies - **Dimensions:** A hoard of at least nine silver and bronze objects plus a parcel of coins; the scourge, the largest single piece, extends to roughly 60 cm; see technical for individual measurements where published - **Object type:** Silver - **Period:** Anglo-Saxon, ninth century (Viking Age) - **Current location:** British Museum, London, Room 41 (Sutton Hoo and Europe, AD 300-1100) - **Attribution:** unknown ## Summary A group of ninth-century Anglo-Saxon silver, one bronze buckle and 114 coins, buried together near St Austell in Cornwall around AD 868 and found by chance by tin-streamers in 1774. It is the type-find for the Trewhiddle style, the name Anglo-Saxon art history uses for the whole ninth-century tradition of niello-inlaid zoomorphic ornament on silver, and it contains one of only two Anglo-Saxon chalices to survive anywhere.It also contains an object nobody has ever explained with confidence: a silver scourge, precisely made and impractical as an actual whip, whose real function remains an open question a century and a half after the hoard entered the British Museum. The burial itself sits inside the general climate of Viking raiding that shaped southern England in the 860s and 870s, but no documented Viking force has been placed at Trewhiddle itself in that year, and a recent paper proposing the hoard as Viking property rather than Anglo-Saxon treasure hidden from Vikings remains, on the evidence available here, unread and unresolved.Donated to the British Museum in 1880 by John Jope Rogers, a descendant of the antiquarian who first acquired the find, it has been in continuous public collection ever since and is now displayed in Room 41 alongside the Fuller Brooch and the Pentney and Cuerdale hoards, the objects and assemblages closest to it in style, period and kind. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **9th century** Unknown Anglo-Saxon silversmiths and their patrons `[unknown]` (manufacture) Individual objects are dated by decorative style (Trewhiddle style, defined by this find) and, for the coin parcel, by regnal issue; no maker, workshop location or original owner is named in any surviving record. - **-c. 868** Unknown `[documented]` (concealment) The burial date is fixed to approximately AD 868 by the latest identifiable coins in the parcel, per the numismatic analysis of C. E. Blunt published jointly with D. M. Wilson's metalwork study in 1961. The identity of whoever buried the hoard, and the immediate reason, are not documented; a connection to Viking activity is the conventional but not independently evidenced explanation. - **c. 868-1774** None recorded `[unknown]` (gap) The hoard lay undisturbed underground at Trewhiddle for 906 years. No intervening owner, disturbance or knowledge of its presence is recorded. - **1774-11-08** Unnamed tin-streamers, then Philip Rashleigh `[documented]` (discovery) Found by tin-workers streaming for tin at Trewhiddle, under loose stones roughly 17 feet down, in what was taken to be an old mine working. The finders are not individually named in the surviving accounts; the find was acquired by the Cornish mineralogist and antiquarian Philip Rashleigh, who published the first notice in 1789. - **1774-1811** Philip Rashleigh `[documented]` (ownership) Held by Rashleigh from acquisition until his death in 1811. His 1789 Archaeologia account is the earliest published record of the find. - **1811-1880** Rashleigh and Rogers families `[documented]` (inheritance) The hoard descended within the Rashleigh family and passed, by inheritance or marriage connection, to the related Rogers family. Both John Jope Rogers (1867) and Jonathan Rashleigh (1868) published accounts of the hoard from the surviving group during this period, by which time 39 of the original 114 coins were already missing. - **1880-03-24-1880** John Jope Rogers, then the Trustees of the British Museum `[documented]` (donation) John Jope Rogers sent the Anglo-Saxon silver and bronze from Trewhiddle to the British Museum by letter of 24 March 1880, asking that it be presented to the Trustees as a token of regard. It was accepted as a gift, not a purchase, and registered under accession group 1880,0410. - **1880-present** British Museum, London `[documented]` (acquisition) In the Museum's collection since 1880, most recently displayed in Room 41, Sutton Hoo and Europe, AD 300-1100. ## Open questions - What was the silver scourge actually for? The traditional reading as a penitential whip is disputed on practical grounds (silver is a poor material for repeated striking and shows no confirmed wear or residue), and no alternative reading, ecclesiastical emblem, status ornament or maker's showpiece, has been established over the others. - Was the hoard buried in a single act, or assembled over time from two coin parcels of differing date (one nearer 850, one nearer 868) before a single concealment? The published numismatic evidence supports either reading. - Who buried the hoard, and why? No document records the act itself; the c. 868 date is fixed by the coins, but the identity, status and motive of whoever concealed it are unrecorded. - Is the c. 868 burial actually connected to Viking activity, and if so to which specific force or raid? No Viking presence is documented in Cornwall itself at that date in the sources consulted; the connection made in most summaries is inferential, drawn from the wider Viking threat of the 860s-870s rather than from a specific attested event at or near Trewhiddle. - What does the 2022-23 Journal of Cornish Archaeology paper 'Re-evaluating Trewhiddle: evidence of a Viking hoard in Cornwall' actually argue, and does it hold up? Its title proposes that the hoard may represent Viking-held wealth rather than Anglo-Saxon property hidden from Vikings; the paper could not be obtained in full for this record and its claim is unverified here. - What was the small decorated silver box for? No specific function (needle case, small reliquary or other) is established in the sources consulted; it is generally described only as a box. - What happened to the 39 coins missing from the group by 1868? Their loss occurred sometime in the 94 years after discovery, with no surviving record of when or how. ## Sources - [1] D. M. Wilson and C. E. Blunt, 'The Trewhiddle Hoard', Archaeologia, vol. 98 (1961), pp. 75-122. The definitive modern catalogue, with Wilson covering the find and the metalwork and Blunt the numismatic dating. - [2] Wikipedia, 'Trewhiddle', consolidating the find circumstances, the Rashleigh and Rogers publications, and the British Museum acquisition. Tertiary; flagged for replacement with Wilson and Blunt (1961) and the British Museum's own catalogue records. - [3] Wikipedia, 'Trewhiddle style', for the naming of the style, its characteristics and the scholars associated with it. Tertiary; flagged for replacement with Brondsted (1924) and Wilson's 1964 metalwork catalogue directly. - [4] British Museum, Collection Online, chalice, object H_1880-0410-1-3, for the accession number, the chalice's construction and gilding, and the 1880 donation by John Jope Rogers. - [5] British Museum, Collection Online, drinking-horn mount from the Trewhiddle hoard. - [6] Philip Rashleigh, 'Account of Antiquities Discovered in Cornwall, 1774', Archaeologia, vol. 9 (1789), pp. 187-188. The earliest published account, by the finder's first owner. Cited via the bibliography of the Wikipedia 'Trewhiddle' article; the original 1789 text was not independently retrieved for this record. - [7] John Jope Rogers, 'Saxon Silver Ornaments and Coins Found at Trewhiddle, near St Austell, AD 1774', Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall, vol. 2 (1867), pp. 292-305. Cited via the bibliography of the Wikipedia 'Trewhiddle' article; the original text was not independently retrieved. - [8] Jonathan Rashleigh, 'An Account of Anglo-Saxon Coins and Gold and Silver Ornaments Found at Trewhiddle, near St Austell, Cornwall, and Some Remarks on Other Anglo-Saxon Hoards', Numismatic Chronicle, new series vol. 8 (1868), pp. 137-157; confirmed as a first-edition pamphlet via an antiquarian bookseller listing. The count of 39 coins already missing by this date is drawn from secondary summaries of this account. - [9] Johannes Brondsted, Early English Ornament: The Sources, Development, and Relation to Foreign Styles of Pre-Norman Ornamental Art in England, translated from the Danish by Albany F. Major, preface by Reginald A. Smith (London: Hachette; Copenhagen: Levin & Munksgaard, 1924), the publication that established 'Trewhiddle style' as the name for this decorative phase. Cited via a contemporary review in The Antiquaries Journal; the original 1924 text was not independently retrieved. - [10] Jonathan Jarrett, 'Cat of Four Silver Tails', A Corner of Tenth-Century Europe (blog), 23 August 2014, for the detailed construction of the scourge and the range of scholarly and informal proposals for its function. Secondary and informal in format (a specialist medievalist's blog rather than a peer-reviewed article); flagged accordingly. - [11] Wikipedia, 'Fuller Brooch', for the brooch's accession number, dimensions, description and its relationship to the Trewhiddle style, including its silver-sulphide niello. Tertiary; flagged for replacement with Bruce-Mitford (1952) or Webster (2012) directly. - [12] Wikipedia, 'Pentney Hoard', for the 1978 discovery, the six brooches, their Trewhiddle-style decoration and the proposed single East Anglian workshop. Tertiary; flagged for replacement with the British Museum's own catalogue record. - [13] Search-derived summary citing laboratory analysis of the Fuller Brooch's niello as predominantly silver sulphide, associated with the earlier Trewhiddle decorative tradition before later medieval niello shifted to copper-based formulas. Not independently retrieved as a primary technical report; flagged for replacement with the original conservation/analytical publication. - [14] 'Re-evaluating Trewhiddle: evidence of a Viking hoard in Cornwall', Journal of Cornish Archaeology. Existence and title confirmed via search; the publication itself returned an access-denied response and its author, year and full argument are not verified here. Included only to record an open question, not as a source for any factual claim in this record. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. 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