A Roman Coin-find on Preesall Hill
by John Fairclough

A find of Roman coins was made on Preesall Hill in 1934. At the time there was no secrecy about this and no-one appeared to be very interested. The find was made by Mr Charles Preston and myself whilst employed by Messrs Keirby and Perry Ltd of Thornton (now no longer in business).

We were opening up a sand quarry in Cartgate a little higher up the hill than the steps leading to the footpath. We had quarried back about forty yards from the entrance and had removed the turf and soil to a depth of approximately ten inches. At this depth I picked up the first coin. Realising that it was of Roman origin, we made a close search of the area and found about twenty-three coins scattered in line over a distance of roughly six yards. After this we kept close observation but nothing further was found. There was no sign of a container nor any other objects. Neither was there any sign of habitation or occupation. The land appeared to have been cultivated at some time in the past and I concluded that the coins had been lost or hidden and never recovered. At some later date they may have been scattered through contact with some sort of agricultural implement.

The material being quarried at the time of the find was delivered to Fleetwood Corporation and used for the laying out of the Marine Gardens. Thus any unnoticed coins may now lie on that site in Fleetwood.

Footnote: The reader is recommended to refer to Dr D C A Shotter's article on "The Hackensall Hoard" in the Over-Wyre Historical Journal, Volume 1. This details a find of a quantity of Third Century Roman Coins near Hackensall Hall Farm, Preesall and refers to the find on Preesall Hill in 1934. The Hackensall Hoard soon became distributed amongst several museums and into private hands. It is known that children at the Fleetwood's Charity School on Preesall Hill used some of the coins as counters.