TREASURE TIDE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3229, 27 May 1911, Page 10

TREASURE TIDE.

HIDDEN WEALTH BROUGHT TO LIGHT BY WAVES.

CLIFFS DESTROYED

An extraordinary high tide on Monday wrought strange havoc on the Suffolk coast and led to the discovery of a new .treasure. At Thorp Ness, Aldeburgh, a million tons of / sand were washed away, and bungalows on the coast which two days ago were 100 yards away from the sea are now within a few feet 'of high-water mark. But the most curious fact was that hundreds of coins of gold, silver, and bronze were brought to light by the tide, also antique bronze rings and ornaments and an old bag clasp of bronze with a silver inscription, believed to be of the age of King John. Some twenty centuries are represented in the discovered tokens. There is a Itoman coin of the Empress Faustina, Saxon coins of several centuries, pilgrims’ lead badges hollowed for the holy water, French silver coins, Charles 11. coins, brass pins of the age when these were used as money tokens, Roman Catholic ikons, and a number of relics of unknown date. Among these tokens of remote ages lie such modern instances as a Spurgeon memorial coin and a footman’s button. Devastating Tide.

The tide itself was a marvel. The north-east wind, working on waters previously increased by west winds, had heaped up the mass against the coast and raised a tide recalling the great tide of forty-eight years ago, which so afflicted the low land at Thorpe Ness. The tide destroyed a great sloping bank half covered with grass, and left in place of the slope a bank of sand. At the base of this cliff, extending some 100 yards, the treasure has been discovered. Some of the coins may have been carried to the shore fiom the vanished city of Dunwicli, trundled along by the swollen tide. But most seem to have been unearthed on the spot by the searching tide. This coast is of the greatest antiquarian interest. Standing on it, according to local legend, the nayfaiei at twilight can hear the bells of the submerged churches of Dunwicli in the sea.° Of this place, once a populous seaport, little or nothing now remains. It is most like to Reculver, in Kent—as lonely and as rich in historic memories. Submerged City. Here centuries ago were stationed Roman troops: here was a Saxon city of great importance, Dummoceastre, and here about 630 A.D. Sigeberht, King of East Anglia, built himself a palace and erected a cathedral, which was consecrated by the Archbishop Honorius. It will be of singular interest if any of Sigeberht’s coins are among this find as early East Anglian coins are very rare. There were fifteen bishops of Dunwicli before the see disappeared. At one time the city boasted six churches, in addition to convents, hospitals, and other public buildings. Step by step the sea encroached and swallowed it up. binder Henry 11. its ships voyaged as far as Iceland. In x the reign ..of Edward 111. the old port was swept away with 400 houses. One by one churches were undermined hv the waves, and to-day only one remains, a melancholy ruin, with a fragment of a monastery and the scanty remains of a leper hospital. Ships, harbor, city, all have gone; even the very ruins have, perished with the above exceptions.