The Romano-British temple site at Wanborough in Surrey was largely unknown and unstudied prior to a remarkable turn of events in the 1980s.

In 1969 there had been a discovery of a roof tile, and a decade later in 1979 a small excavation was carried out. Then in 1983, two metal-detector users discovered some silver and gold coins, which they reported to Guildford Museum. In England and Wales at that time, the legal procedure followed for such discoveries was Treasure Trove, a process through which a coroner's inquest determined whether the objects put forward should be classed as "treasure" in the legal sense. The events that followed have been described as "nothing short of a scandal". During the inquest that took place the following year, the exact location of the site where the coins had been found was given out in open court, leading soon after to large scale nighthawking (looting with metal detectors) at the site.

Due to the illicit nature of the metal detecting and digging that took place in the ensuing days, it is not possible to know for certain how many individuals were involved. It has been said that dealers were also present on site, buying objects as they came out of the ground, and that there were perhaps, "at times, 30 or 40 people digging away overnight". In addition, articles in treasure hunting magazines seemingly inspired treasure hunters to come to Wanborough to participate in the apparently unrestrained plundering of the site from counties as far away as Norfolk, Kent and Dorset.

It is also unclear how much material was removed from the site in that initial period of looting. Some estimates have suggested that more than 20,000 individual artefacts may have been removed, and certainly at least 9,000. The artefacts found at Wanborough have included Iron Age and Roman coins, but also other material connected to the site's function as a temple, including a sceptre and headdresses. It has been estimated that objects were looted with a total market value at the time of £2 million, however this can also only be an approximation in the absence of precise data. A small amount of material was seized during the 1984 looting incidents by police, but much went straight to the antiquities market - and has occasionally resurfaced since.

Another unknown is the destination of much of the material; 'Some of the coins have been reported in Belgium, Switzerland and Germany; others as far afield as New Zealand. Material is also believed to have gone into the US market. Further material was excavated during rescue excavations and surveys in 1986 carried out by the local voluntary group Surrey Archaeological Society, but even during this authorised fieldwork further illicit metal detecting took place. Curiously too, in the same year some material that had been looted from Wanborough was sent anonymously to Surrey Archaeological Society, accompanied by a note from a "well-wisher".

A feature of the looting at Wanborough that makes it particularly notable, aside from the scale of the damage to the site, is the fact that arrests were made and cases even went to court. Despite a small number of convictions resulting in fines and confiscation of a metal detector, it was widely acknowledged that the court cases actually demonstrated the need to change the Treasure Trove common law and pass new legislation that was fit for purpose. Although it took another decade, the events at Wanborough, and the tenacity of Surrey Archaeological Society in particular, have been credited with providing the catalyst for what eventually became the Treasure Act 1996 - a new law replacing Treasure Trove in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Wanborough itself, despite the scale of the looting in 1984, experienced further looting on later occasions, perhaps due to the 'almost mythical status' that the site had attained. Specific incidents have been reported in 1986, 1997 and 2005.

Alan Norris, Normandy Historians
March 2026

Normandy Historians acknowledges Trafficking Culture for the above information of the Wanborough Hoard, and is extracted from the TraffickingCulture.org website.
Detailed references have been omitted.

The site of the Wanborough temples was located on Green Lane to the west of Christmas Pie crossroads (on the parish boundary between Normandy and Wanborough).