The afternoon of the Sunday of our ‘at home’ weekend involved a mammoth lunch session and a mass game of cricket. But in the morning we managed to sneak in a short walk.
S decided to ignore the autumnal feel to the weather and dressed for an Hawaiian beach party.
Silverdale is ideal for short strolls with children of all ages. There’s something to entertain around every corner. The kids posed for a photo on a bench on Cove Road…
And admired the alpacas in a field beside the road.
Then explored the smelly cave at The Cove…
We crossed the Lots, which have fine views of the Bay and then detoured slightly to the village library, to read the articles about the ‘Silverdale Hoard’ tacked inside the windows.
Last year a local metal-detectorist found a Viking hoard in a field nearby. Coins, arm-bracelets, brooch-fragments and silver ingots all found inside or underneath a soft lead container which had been folded around the treasure like a pasty. It seems it was buried here early in the tenth century. The coins, all silver bar one forgery which has a thin film of silver over cheaper metal, are various: Frankish, Saxon, Arabic and Viking. One coin is of Alfred’s nephew Æthelwold, another of a previously unknown Northumbrian King Harthacnut. Two more were minted in Baghdad.
With heads full of the area’s Viking past (while mine was at least) we followed the ginnel down to Woodwell, where water spouts from the base of a cliff and feeds a shallow pond.
A path clambers up the cliff and from the top it’s a short walk back to the house and lunch.
The SIlverdale Hoard is currently housed at the British Museum, although it’s hoped that Lancaster Museum will be the eventual home of the find.
Photos of part of the Silverdale Hoard are here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/finds/sets/72157628402973283/with/6509648969/
And the British Museum blog has some details here:
http://blog.britishmuseum.org/2011/12/14/two-hoards-and-one-unknown-viking-ruler/
Beating The Bounds 