Sheffield metal detector fan nets ‘find of a lifetime’

A unique penny dating from the reign of King Stephen over 850 years ago has been found by a Sheffield metal detecting enthusiast.

The silver penny - which is expected to fetch up to £10,000 at auction, and rewrite the history of early English coinage - was found in a field.

The coin, which dates from a chaotic period of civil war, will be sold at auction in London on April 2.

“This is an extraordinary discovery,” said Christopher Webb, head of the coins department at specialist auctioneers Dix Noonan Webb. “It is tremendously exciting.”

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Carrickfergus Castle dig extended

An archaeological excavation at Ireland's best-preserved Anglo Norman castle has been extended after the discovery of a secret tunnel.

Experts from Queen's University had been commissioned to spend three weeks conducting exploratory digs at Carrickfergus Castle in a bid to find out more about the 800-year-old fortification on the shores of Belfast Lough.

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Dorset's Viking mass grave skeletons on display in London

About 50 skeletons were found in an old quarry pit at Ridgeway Hill, in Dorset, in 2009, during the construction of the Weymouth relief road.

All had been decapitated - their bodies were thrown into shallow graves with their heads piled up to one side.

Some of the skeletons have now gone on display at the British Museum in London.

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