Mystery of the Cheapside Hoard

Not Just the Tudors

History Hit

History

4.8 • 3K Ratings

🗓️ 9 June 2025

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In June 1912, two workmen made a discovery in the London mud that would stun the antiquarian world: a hoard of gold, pearls, rubies, emeralds, and jewels from around the world. Handed over to antiques dealer George Fabian Lawrence, or ‘Stony Jack’, the Cheapside Hoard became known as the greatest cache of Elizabethan and Jacobean jewellery ever found.

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by Victoria Shepherd, author of Stony Jack and the Lost Jewels of Cheapside: Treasure and Ghosts in the London Clay, to tell this extraordinary true story of empire, ambition, and buried treasure—a glittering mystery that still captivates historians and treasure hunters today.

More:

A Tudor Mystery: The Girl who Could be Queen

https://open.spotify.com/episode/7ah4FWEOjfcDKCK9QVFmVE

Tudor Queens: The Power of Jewellery

https://open.spotify.com/episode/3WCKhj0ORpANADDzIdot6k

Presented by Professor Suzannah Lipscomb. The researcher is Alice Smith, audio editor is Amy Haddow and the producer is Rob Weinberg. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.

All music courtesy of Epidemic Sounds.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb.
0:02.6	If you'd like not just the Tudors ad-free to get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit.
0:10.5	With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries,
0:16.0	including my own recent two-part series, A World Torn Apart, The Dissolution of the Monastries, and enjoy a new release
0:24.0	every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com forward slash subscribe.
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1:06.8	Hello, I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb and welcome to Not Just the Tudors from History Hit,
1:12.6	the podcast in which we explore everything from Anne Boleyn to the Aztecs,
1:17.1	from Holbein to the Huguenose, from Shakespeare to Samarise,
1:21.6	relieved by regular doses of murder, espionage and witchcraft.
1:25.9	Not in other words, just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors.
1:40.4	It all began with a glimpse of gold.
1:43.7	The year was 1912. Two labourers working in a cellar in Cheapside, not far from St. Paul's Cathedral in the city of London, unearthed the remains of a wooden casket. Its tangled contents were perhaps the most remarkable single discovery of Elizabethan jewels ever found. Quickly labelled the Che side hoard, this magnificent collection speaks of England at the beginning of empire,
2:05.6	with Colombian emeralds, Burmese, rubies and Iranian turquoise among its dazzling examples.
2:11.6	It was brought to the attention of the antique dealer known as Stony Jack,
2:15.6	and then acquired in large part by what is now the Museum of London.
2:19.5	But some pieces of the collection were lost,
	...

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