Viking Age coinhoard.


A hoard of 237 silver coins (four of them fragments) was found in May 1786, and surrendered to the Manx Exchequer in September of that year by the Duke of Athol's seneschal, Peter Heywood, as treasure trove.


The same number of coins was referred to by J Feltham in his Tour (1798), with the additional information that the discovery was made in the parish of Lonan. This has subsequently been further focussed on Ballacannell, although the precise findspot remains unknown.


Ballacannell was a quarterland farmholding lying just to the south of the modern parish church. The grid reference relates to the old Ballacannell farmstead, now demolished.


The coins are now lost, but are thought to have represented a hoard of mainly Hiberno-Norse silver pennies, deposited in about 1030. Mention of a rather square coin is thought to indicate the presence of a silver denier from Rouen.