Page:Surrey Archaeological Collections Volume 1.djvu/137

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ANCIENT BRITISH COINS FOUND IN SURREY.
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VI.

ANCIENT BRITISH COINS FOUND IN SURREY.


The eleven coins engraved in the accompanying plate claim the attention of the Surrey Archæological Society on the ground that nearly all of them have been discovered within the limits of the county. The first seven were found on Farley Heath, a locality in which many interesting relics have been brought to light. No. 8 is stated to have been found on Croydon Downs; No. 9 in Hampshire, on the borders of Surrey; No. 10 at Leatherhead, and No. 11 at Godalming.

No. 1 (by mistake represented upside down) resembles several of those found by a peasant boy near Albury in the year 1848, and described and engraved in the "Numismatic Chronicle," vol. xi. p. 92. The type was already known to Numismatists, but these are the first records of their place of finding, a matter of great weight and significance in any attempt to appropriate ancient British coins. There appears to be little doubt that these coins may at least be assigned to the southern counties of England, and their proper location is perhaps the district in which examples have hitherto been discovered. It is not easy to describe the type, which bears no analogy to that of any other ancient British coin.

No. 2, from its resemblance to other types found in the south of England, may probably be ascribed to the district of Britain comprised within the counties of Surrey, Hants, and Middlesex.