Archeologist found hoard of 11th Century coins months into career

A man who found a hoard of 11th Century coins just months into his archaeology career said the discovery was made all the more sweet by being unearthed near his home town.

Andrew Pegg, 49, from Leiston, Suffolk, spent 24 years working in the retail industry before he felt he needed a change.

He enjoyed metal detecting and heard about an open traineeship to become a qualified archaeologist.

After completing this, he then joined an Oxford Cotswold Archaeology excavation at Sizewell C – just outside his home town – where he found 321 silver coins in mint condition.

For years, Mr Pegg had managed a Leiston hardware store, but he said his career there did not offer a lot of “variety”.

In 2022, a friend who worked at Cotswold Archaeology invited him to a community excavation.

He enjoyed metal detecting in his spare time in the local area and wondered if the dig could be “a foot in the door” to the archaeology world.

After this, Mr Pegg heard about an open traineeship to become an archaeologist with Cotswold Archaeology and he “took the jump” to apply.

He completed it to become a qualified archaeologist and has recently been promoted.

“As long as you’ve got the interest for it, and you’re prepared to put up with the weather conditions sometimes, as long as you’ve got the passion for it, I think the majority of people are fine and have that capability to progress,” Mr Pegg said of the work.

The first major project Mr Pegg worked on was excavations at Sizewell C, led by a partnership between Oxford Archaeology and Cotswold Archaeology.

About nine months after starting, he found the hoard of 11th Century coins, which the team believed could have been the savings pot of a local figure, fearing regime changes following the coronation of Edward the Confessor.

The coins date between 1036 and 1044 during the reigns of Harold I, Harthacnut and Edward the Confessor.

Mr Pegg said none of the team “expected anything like that” to be found at the site and it was an “incredible” surprise.

“It’s my backyard – I was born in Leiston and I’ve never lived anywhere else,” he added.

“I think there was some kind of fate involved in that… to find it where you live, where you grew up, we’ve never done archaeology on this kind of scale in the immediate area of Leiston before and to find something like that is mind blowing really.”

Mr Pegg is now working on excavations in Wickham Market, Suffolk, and encouraged anyone thinking of a career change into archaeology to take the plunge.

“It’s not just the folk out of college and university with their varying degrees, they took me on at 47 – quite late in life – and I had no archaeological background at all,” he said.

“I know there’s a couple of my other colleagues have gone down a similar route so it’s not that niche.

“There is quite an open audience as to who can do this job, it’s not a closed book by any means.

“You just need to have the interest and passion for it.”