THE BLOXIDGE TALLYGRAPH
The online Community News and Local History Magazine for Bloxwich & District - Edditid by a Bloxidge mon!
Appeal launched to raise funds for The Staffordshire Hoard
Pyramid mounts and inscribed strip. Picture courtesy Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
Dateline: 5 October 2009
Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery has launched a public appeal to help raise funds to acquire and care for The Staffordshire Hoard, a major collection of Anglo-Saxon military treasure discovered in July by Mr. Terry Herbert of Burntwood, a member of Bloxwich Research and Metal Detecting Club.
The Hoard was found by Mr. Herbert in a field at Johnson's Farm, Brownhills, just over the Walsall border with Staffordshire, and is due to go to the British Museum for valuation shortly as treasure trove (see our earlier story).
The historic announcement of the discovery of the Hoard earlier this month was followed almost immediately by an apparent unseemly scramble from various local Councils in Staffordshire and West Midlands to lay hands on the gold. MPs and Councillors across both Birmingham and Staffordshire, and even Lichfield Cathedral, have reportedly joined in the gold rush, each attempting to claim it for their county, city, town or village.
However, archaeologists and museums in both Birmingham and Staffordshire have already laid plans for a joint bid to keep the treasure in the region both for academic study and for public exhibit. Hopefully a genuinely joint project - if both successful and equitable across the region - will help to allay the fears of local people that their Mercian heritage may be made off with to London or, worse still, overseas, by modern-day Viking raiders!
Inevitably, the project will cost millions of pounds and take years, and funds will need to be raised both in the form of grants and by public subscription, as well as from local authority and academic coffers. Talk of charging to see any future exhibitions has, however, not been well-received by some already hard-pressed and overtaxed local residents of the region, who feel their English heritage should not be seen as a cash-cow or a license to print money, especially in the present economic climate. Time will tell.
Whatever the outcome, it is essential that this remarkable discovery in all its glory be made equally available to all across the Mercian region, which includes both the historic county of Staffordshire and the disjointed modern conglomeration of West Midlands.
There are a number of ways to donate to the Birmingham Museums appeal. Probably the best is to download the dedicated donation form via this link, to ensure that the funds go specifically to the Staffordshire Hoard project. A new online donations facility will also be available soon.
If you live in Staffordshire, you may also like to visit your local or County museums to ask what they are doing to help raise funds for the acquisition of the Hoard. For more on Staffordshire museums, see: http://bit.ly/4BkQcr
