Archaeologists in North Yorkshire discover ‘the biggest and most important Iron Age hoard ever found in Britain’

The remains of chariots, wagons, iron tyres, elaborate pony harnesses and ceremonial spears are among the 800 objects that make up a newly discovered Iron Age hoard near Melsonby, North Yorkshire, announces Historic England (HE), as it prepares to celebrate its 10th anniversary.

Initial assessments suggest the objects were buried in the 1st century AD, at about the time of the Roman Conquest of southern Britain. ‘It’s an exceptional find, the biggest and most important Iron Age hoard ever found in Britain,’ says Duncan Wilson, chief executive of HE, which gave more than £120,000 in grant funding to the excavation, carried out by Durham University archaeologists with advice from the British Museum. ‘It’s fascinating to speculate that it may represent the remains of funeral pyres, alongside the road to the Iron Age hill fort of Stanwick.’

The organisation will mark its anniversary on April 1, honouring a decade of historic buildings and monuments advisory, previously administered by English Heritage. Wilson, who stands down from the role he has held throughout the period, this year, says the change brought ‘clarity to our role as a champion for the wider historic environment, the contribution heritage can make to growth and what it can do for communities’. Among the successes he points to is launching the National Blue Plaque Scheme outside London (2023) and the High Streets Heritage Action Zone programme (2020–24) — ‘England’s first heritage-led regeneration programme to go beyond restoration, redefining how high streets can be revitalised, encouraging people to visit local high streets and breathing new life into them’. Sixty-seven high streets, from Bedford to Burnley, received targeted funding, with 723 historic buildings repaired, 462 shopfronts restored and many previously vacant buildings returned to use.

Meanwhile, the Heritage at Risk Register has just been handed an extra £15 million from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to expand its grant programme. ‘Our research indicates that England could gain up to 670,000 new homes by repurposing and repairing vacant historic buildings, including many that appear on the Register,’ explains Wilson. A high-profile, one-time At Risk case is Shrewsbury Flaxmill Maltings: ‘Almost a year ago, The Queen visited the site. This huge, once derelict, iron-frame building, internationally recognised as the grandparent of the world’s first skyscrapers, is now open after an extensive £28 million, eight-year regeneration project led by us. It’s been reborn as a learning space for the public and a flexible office space.’

An archaeologist by profession, he considers the 2016 discovery of a perfectly preserved Bronze Age settlement at Must Farm in Cambridgeshire — ‘Peterborough’s Pompeii’ — as a personal highlight during his time as chief executive. ‘On one day when I visited, they’d just unearthed the most complete Bronze Age wheel in Britain,’ he remembers. ‘It was hard to overrate my delight at seeing the complete roundhouses, with their structural members intact and surrounded by a palisade, emerging from the Fenland mud after 3,000 years.’ Wilson is to continue his involvement with heritage via non-executive roles with Chatham Historic Dockyard and the Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich.