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Finstock
The area of Oxfordshire around Finstock was prosperous in the early Roman
period, and had a high concentration of villas. The precise location at
which the coin was found can be no more than speculation, but Wilcote,
roughly three miles from the North Leigh villa and close to Finstock,
is a strong candidate. Wilcote was not a villa but a roadside settlement
on the Roman road which ran from Cirencester to St Albans. This is only
the second find of Roman gold of the first and second centuries AD in
Oxfordshire, and the first to be on show to the public in the county.
Martha Spriggs
The coin was first collected by one Martha Spriggs (1777–1866),
an avid collector from a prosperous Quaker family who lived over their
draper’s shop in Broad Street, Worcester. Her eclectic collection
of antiquities and wonders formed a veritable ‘Cabinet of Curiosities’.
It included ‘portions of the blood’ from Richard the Lionheart’s
heart and a sea shell which fell from the sky.
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