A hoard of 3rd-century Roman coins was found in the garden of a house in Lightwood Road, Longton, Stoke-on-Trent, in the summer of 1960. The hoard, which had been placed in an earthenware pot, consisted of 2,461 coins and two silver bracelets.

1,739 of the coins were regular Roman issue, but the hoard also contained 722 'irregular' coins, the so-called 'barbarous radiates'. The dates of the coins suggest that the hoard was buried around 277-278AD, in the reign of Emperor Probus.

The silver bracelets and clasp had been wrapped in a finely woven cloth before being placed in the pot. The bracelets are in the form of a snakes with the head and tail overlapping. The clasp is also part of a bracelet.

There were no banks in Roman times where people could deposit money. The only way people could store wealth was by turning it into assets such as land, or by hoarding it. Coins were often placed in pots and buried for safe keeping. The hoard was probably recovered when cash was needed, with the remainder perhaps re-buried elsewhere.

People may have buried their savings during times of trouble and upheaval, perhaps when war was threatened. Hoards that are found today are those that have not been recovered by their owner. They may have died or been prevented from returning, or they may have forgotten where the hoard was buried.

We do not know why someone buried their coins and silver in Lightwood at the end of the 3rd century. We only know that they failed to retrieve it.