A metal detectorist unearthed a haul of 14 Civil War coins showing Charles I and James I that could be worth around £24,000.

Steve Simmons, 63, had only been detecting for just two months and not found a single coin when he made the discovery in a field near Box, Wiltshire.

He used to run a restaurant in Exeter, Devon, with his wife and now look after the current landowner where the coins were found in August 2020.

Mr Simmons was using his C-scope CS2MX metal detector on a rocky and rough field when he dug up the nearly 400-year-old pieces of metal.

Just six inches deep, he uncovered two coins, Mr Simmons then put them in his pocket with no idea what he had found.

It was only during later online searches he realised he had two Charles I gold unites - the second English gold coin that was first produced under the reign of King James I.

Mr Simmons then decided to upgrade his detector for an Equinox 600 and a few days later went back to the spot where he had found the unites and close by found another 12 coins buried in a stack 18 inches down.

It is thought the 14 coins were buried by a soldier loyal to King Charles at their camp in Wiltshire, the day before facing Parliamentary forces eight miles away at the Battle of Lansdowne.

Wiltshire Times:

Serving under Lord Hopton, Royalists lost the Civil War battle suffering heavy casualties on July 5, 1643, at Lansdowne Hill, near Bath, Somerset.

The coins depict portraits of the first Stuart king, James I and his son, Charles I - dating from 1606, with the latest coin dating to 1641 and 1643.

Each coin had a face value of £10, which would have been enough to buy a horse at the time, and is worth more than £2,000 today, experts said.

Nigel Mills, consultant in coins and artefacts at Noonans auctioneers in Mayfair, central London, said: "We can imagine that on the 4th of July 1643 at a Royalist encampment near Box in Wiltshire, an army officer knelt and started digging in the dirt.

"He took off the gold half laurel that hung around his neck and added it to the leather pouch that contained a further 13 gold coins and concealed them in the small pit.

"Serving under Lord Hopton he would be facing the Parliamentary forces at Lansdowne Hill the next day, a battle they would lose with heavy casualties including his own."

The hoard of 14 gold coins is now being sold at auction and is estimated to fetch around £24,000.

Mr Simmons is hoping to put the money from the sale towards his own retirement and invest in another detector, called a Manticore, which he hopes will help him make more discoveries.

Mr Mills added: "The coins had a face value of £10 which would have been enough to buy a horse and equates to more than £2,000 today.

"The coins show portraits of James I and Charles I and date from 1606 with the latest coin dating to 1641 to 1643 from the mintmark ‘triangle in a circle’ that appears above the bust of Charles."

The coins will be part of a Noonans Coins and Historical Medals sale on April 4.