The Staffordshire Hoard Appeal
Pledge your support for Anglo-Saxon treasure
A rally-cry has been issued to city residents and businesses to help ensure the largest ever find of Anglo-Saxon gold remains on public display.
Collection boxes for The Staffordshire Hoard have been launched at the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery.
And local people are being urged to pledge their support for the treasure by making donations.
Stoke-on-Trent City Council leader Ross Irving said: “The quantity and quality of the hoard is completely unprecedented – simply nothing like this has ever been found before.
“We are working hard with our partners to ensure this unique treasure can be kept on public display, but we need the support of local people to help make this happen.
“We want as many people as possible to come forward and make a donation, however large or small, to show their support.
“The money raised will go towards a fundraising bid to acquire the treasure. If the fundraising is not successful, then the money will go towards research, exhibition and interpretation of the hoard.”
Stoke-on-Trent City Council is working with Birmingham City Council to acquire the treasure, other partners including Staffordshire County Council. Lichfield District Council and Tamworth Borough Council are working to tell major parts of the hoard story. The hoard includes supremely crafted gold and some silver items from the seventh century. The treasure is set to be put before a valuation committee in London in late November, and should the value be agreed at the meeting, the council and its partners will have a limited time to raise the funds to acquire the hoard. A number of public funding bodies have also been approached.
The council has been inundated with enquiries from all over the world about the hoard, since it was unearthed by a metal detectorist in a farmer’s field in the south of the county in July.
Councillor Hazel Lyth, cabinet member for enterprise and culture, said: “The Staffordshire Hoard has really captured the public’s imagination. We’ve had enquiries from Cape Town radio stations, Sydney newspapers, New York television stations and Paris education magazines. Its appeal is unparalleled and is truly global.
“The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery holds archaeological collections of national and international importance, underlined in the ‘designated collection’ status accorded to the museum by central government. It is the repository for all archaeological finds in the county. For more than 30 years, city residents have supported fantastic finds at our museum, and we’d like to see local people coming forward to show their support once again.”
The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery has several significant Saxon metal finds as well as a tonne-and-a-quarter of late Saxon pottery made in Staffordshire. It holds the national post-medieval pottery reference collection.
