Briglands, Rumbling Bridge

NT09NW 1 c 017 995.

In 1938, Sir George Macdonald identified 9 denarii ranging from Otho to Commodus, which had been found on Lord Clyde's estate of Briglands, Rumbling Bridge, and suggested that they must have formed part of a hoard. This suggestion was confirmed by the discovery, during the years 1948 to 1957, of further groups of denarii, on exactly the same spot, two-thirds of the way up the steep E bank of the River Devon, and 1/4 mile above Rumbling Bridge. The first coins were discovered at the mouth of a rabbit burrow, and the rest were found by tunnelling under the tree stump. There had been no core to the hoard, but the coins were found in batches of six or so at intervals along the cutting which has now gone about six feet. There was no sign of a container of any kind, but the coins were covered by a uniform deposit of dirt and oxide which left no doubt that they had all come from the same hoard. In all, 179 denarii, from Nero to Crispina, were recovered by 1957, and in 1972 another, of Marcus Caesar, was in the possession of the son of the gamekeeper at Briglands. in 1974, Lord Clyde presented the hoard to the Royal Museum of Scotland, but only 178 coins were present, one of Antoninus Pius being apparently lost.

G Macdonald 1939; A S Robertson 1957; A S Robertson 1978.