Local History

The coin shows Roman Emperor Julian

The original gold coin was found in the village of St Agnes almost 100 years ago.

The treasure disappeared a few years later and the original discovery came to light again only last year when a volunteer from St Agnes museum, Clare Murton, came across wax impressions of it which had been made at the time.

"I was making a photographic record of artefacts for the museum which included a wax impression of the coin," explains Clare Murton, a volunteer at the St Agnes Museum.

Clare was going through a large amount of material that has been given to the museum by the family of Dr Whitworth, one of five generations of doctors in general practice in St Agnes.

The flipside shows a soldier and prisoner

Clare came across a piece of paper which had a sealing wax impression of the rare coin, together with the following account:

"Mrs John Tonkin of Carn Golla, north west of Beacon, picked up in a field recently enclosed from the Common, which had just been scuffed or harrowed, a Roman gold coin the size of a half-sovereign, bright and in perfect preservation..."

Clare says: "I tried to identify the coin on the internet, eventually getting in touch with Roger Bland from the British Museum who told me that it's evidence of a very rare type of Roman Coin of which they'd had no previous evidence."

Unfortunately the treasure itself disappeared a few years after it was discovered.

"It's very frustrating but I still hold hope that it will turn up. For now it will make a big difference to have the electrotype replica from the British Museum," says Clare.

The wax impression found in St Agnes

Roger Bland from the British Museum was the person Clare Murton contacted about the rare coin. At the beginning of July Roger visited St Agnes to present the village's museum with the replica copy.

"I am very grateful to St Agnes Museum for showing us this seal impression of a gold coin of the Roman Emperor Julian," says Roger.

"I am delighted to be able to present an electrotype replica of the coin to the museum as part of the work that the British Museum does with other museums in Britain."

St Agnes Museum's volunteers are delighted with the latest addition to their exhibition.

"We are thrilled with the replica. We have very little history of that period directly, but I tihink it indicates that St Agnes was probably quite prosperous, but we have no true record of that," says Colin Harris, the curator of the museum.

The St Agnes museum is now open daily 10.30am-5pm, until October. Admission to the museum is free.