Trewhiddle

The Trewhiddle Hoard in the British Museum

The silver chalice and other items

On 8 November 1774, miners streaming for tin uncovered a hoard of 114 Anglo-Saxon coins together with a silver chalice and other gold and silver objects. The coins, mostly from Mercia and Wessex, indicate that the hoard was hidden, possibly to protect it from Viking raiders, in around 868.[1][3] The artefacts were originally collected by Philip Rashleigh who published a subsequent account.[4] Some were later dispersed, but most of the hoard was presented to the British Museum.[5] Many of the artefacts were decorated with stylized niello animals, a feature of Anglo-Saxon art which has since become known as Trewhiddle style decoration.[6][7]

Another remarkable discovery was made in 2003, when a 150-year-old lump of tungsten was found at Trewhiddle Farm. This may predate the earliest known smelting of the metal (which requires extremely high temperatures) and has led to speculation that it may have been produced during a visit by Rudolf Erich Raspe to Happy-Union mine (at nearby Pentewan) in the late eighteenth century. Raspe, best known as the author or translator of the Baron Munchausen stories, was also a chemist with a particular interest in tungsten.[8][9]