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The Cheapside Hoard - London's Hidden Jewels
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Sep 2, 2024
In 1912, workmen demolishing a building in London's Cheapside district made an extraordinary discovery - a dazzling hoard of nearly 500 Elizabethan and Jacobean jewels. For the first time since its discovery, all the pieces from this priceless treasure trove will be on display at the Museum of London in a new exhibition opening on October 11th 2013.
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0:00
Once they were hidden in the dark, now they sparkle in the light
0:28
But a hundred years since they were unearthed from a London cellar
0:32
the jewels of the Cheapside Hall remain as marvellous and mysterious as ever
0:42
Now, for the first time, this breathtaking treasure from the time of Shakespeare
0:47
is being brought together for exhibition at the Museum of London. I'm Sean Lean
0:58
As a goldsmith and jewellery designer, I've created avant-garde pieces for musicians like Bjork and fashion designers like Alexander McQueen
1:07
I'm fascinated by how traditional craft skills can be applied to sophisticated modern jewellery
1:14
But I'm also intrigued by the deeper meaning of jewels, how beneath the surface glitter there's the stamp of something much more personal
1:24
That's why I've become so bewitched by the Cheapside Hall. These beautifully made pieces might be three and a half centuries old
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but they're full of amazing stories. Stories about the people who wore them and the people who made them
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The workmanship that went into that piece is amazing. I mean, I don't think I've ever seen a chain so beautiful, to be honest
1:50
There's so much about the Cheapside Hoard that I want to discover
1:54
Who did the collection belong to? Why was it buried and why was it forgotten
2:00
Do you think that one of these soldiers could have been responsible for burying the hoard
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It's quite possible. I've been given behind-the-scenes access to the exhibition and allowed the once-in-a-lifetime chance to handle some of these spellbinding jewels
2:16
I'm dying to have a look at this. It's just a tour de force, really. Unbelievable
2:22
It's an experience that's revealed a world even more exciting and sometimes darker than I could ever have imagined
2:30
This is a tale of fire and forgery, intrigue and murder. But it's also a story of deep devotion, astonishing skill and breathtaking beauty
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Cheapside, right at the heart of the city of London and a place where old and new collide
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They've been demolishing and rebuilding here for centuries and it's thrown up some unexpected treasures
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In 1912, a gang of workmen were demolishing an old building which stood on 30 to 32 Cheapside, somewhere here above my head
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They dug down as far as the cellars when one of them struck his pickaxe into the floor
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When he levered it back, he noticed something glittering amongst the earth
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Something that looked like gold, something that looked like jewels. The Cheapside hoard contains everything from enamelled necklaces to rock crystal tankards
3:45
from crucifixes to cameos. Most of the nearly 500 pieces seem to date to the early 17th century
3:54
but the collection covers a bewildering range of styles and periods. This is just such an extraordinary gem really
4:07
and it shows, as I think you can see here, the head of a woman in profile
4:13
It's an Egyptian agate and it was cut in the second or third century BC
4:19
That's unbelievable. It's so precise, isn't it? The detail, if you look really closely, you can even see the feather outlines on the headdress
4:28
That might be a clue to the identity of this lady. Who do you think this may be
4:33
There are two possibilities. Either it's Berenice II or, much more likely, Cleopatra
4:39
Oh, really? It's been in circulation for the best part of nearly 2,000 years, perhaps
4:45
before it ended up underneath a cellar floor. I think this is what's so fascinating about the hoard
4:52
You've got both ends of the spectrum. This really old, beautiful piece
4:57
And then you have the emerald watch fob, which is almost a modern piece
5:03
It could almost be. You really look at that stone and think the facets are so clean, they're so linear
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It's just a tour de force, really. Unbelievable. That's a pretty big emerald
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It's whopping. How my mind works as a jeweller is what kind of size rough do you need
5:21
to cut all those facets and get this shape? I'm estimating you would need about 150 carats of rough to cut this
5:30
So I suppose the burning question is, who would this have belonged to
5:34
I just wish we knew. It has to have belonged to somebody with incredible wealth. Royal
5:41
It's entirely possible. Maybe one of the most amazing things about the priceless jewels
5:50
in the Cheapside hoard isn't that they were discovered, but that they didn't just disappear again
5:57
The fact that the Cheapside hoard was saved intact is really down to one man
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the unforgettably named Stoney Jack Lawrence. George Stoney Jack Lawrence was a pawnbroker, but a pawnbroker with a difference
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He combined his hard-nosed business interests with a passion for saving London's archaeological past
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Stoney Jack was well-known amongst the navvies working on London's building sites
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for offering top prices for any unusual items that they happened to dig up
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The workmen who stumbled across the Cheapside hoard were soon knocking at Stoney Jack's door
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Within a few weeks, he had paid out for hundreds of astonishing pieces
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which he in turn sold on to the New Museum of London
6:49
Over a century on from Stoney Jack's remarkable rescue job, painstaking work on the Cheapside hoard continues
6:58
So, Catherine, what are the pieces you're working on now? Well, these are some of the chains from the hoard
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and what I'm doing at the moment is actually preparing them for mounting. We face quite a challenge in how to display them
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because of the incredibly fragile enamel. So what we've been doing is stitching them to these brass wires
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which have been coated in a protective plastic coating, so that then they can be hung up in the case
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And we quite like this idea of stitching because I think that's something that would have been done originally
7:29
That's how they originally were worn, weren't they? I've studied portraits and it was beautiful the way that they draped these chains
7:35
They'd be sewn to the shoulders and then draped along the chest and actually hanging down the arms as well
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I've seen them actually have the chains, the enamel chains, hanging down their dress with like a fob watch on the end as well
7:47
So they would have chipped very quickly. You do wonder how long they would have survived, actually
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if they hadn't been buried, because, you know, the enamel's so fragile on there
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I'm sure eventually people would have just thrown them away because the enamel would have started coming away
8:00
and you'd reuse the diamonds. The fragile jewels contained in the Cheapside hoard
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might have survived intact for three and a half centuries, but Cheapside itself has not
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Like many parts of London, this place has changed almost out of all recognition
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In the 17th century, this was the city's major thoroughfare and the glittering heart of the jewellery trade
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There are still jewellery shops here today, but to get a real sense of Cheapside's golden age
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you have to turn up one of its side streets. This is Goldsmith's Hall, the headquarters of the powerful guild
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who once owned and oversaw many of the jewellers' premises in London
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Hi, Sean. Very nice to meet you. I'm meeting up with David Beasley, the company of Goldsmith's librarian
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to try and get a picture of what Cheapside was like at the time of the hoard
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This is part of an estate plan from the late 17th century
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and it shows Cheapside and the property owned by the company. And this is the area which was commonly known as Goldsmith's Row
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It was really the pre-eminent shopping area for goldsmiths and silversmiths. So it was the jewellery quarter of London at the time
9:23
Very much so, yes. So looking at these shopfronts, they're pretty... pretty small, aren't they
9:28
Yes, I think they were... The entries were quite... How big do you think they would have been
9:32
Well, I think they were about maybe 5 to 10 feet, maybe 15 feet in width, as it were
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and much smaller than they would be today. So here we have 30 to 32, which is the building where the hoard was buried
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Do we have any idea who occupied that building at that time
9:49
We have some idea. We have a book, a rent book here from 1610
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and this details some of the ownership and some of the leases which people had
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And if we look in this section here, we know that Alexander Prescott had a tenement
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which we think is in the area of 30 to 32, and we know that Mary Wakefield took on a lease of this in 1632
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So could Mary Wakefield have been the person who buried the hoard
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It's possible, but one of the great problems is that there was a lot of subletting
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so the person who actually owned the lease was not necessarily the person
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who was actually in occupation of the shop or a particular part of the property
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We'll probably never be able to put a name to the person who hid the Cheapside hoard
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but because it was buried under Goldsmith's Row, we can be fairly sure that it belonged to a working jeweller
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It's likely that this fabulous collection was a goldsmith's stocking trade, with pieces for sale, repair and recycling
10:55
And there's another aspect of the hoard that we can guess at
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What the place where the jewels were produced in looked like. So welcome to our workshop
11:14
These are my craftsmen, Ollie, Pedro and Duncan. Now, if a craftsman from the period of the Cheapside hoard was to walk in here today
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he would see a lot of similarities to the workshop that he would have practised in too
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Not much has changed. We use the same skins underneath the benches to catch the gold lemel
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which is the gold dust which is recycled. And we use the same kind of pliers
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The little drills are very similar. The files and even the triplets and tools that we use to form and forge pieces
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are very similar to what they would have used in those days. Duncan's making a bespoke messenger pendant
11:56
We were commissioned by one of my clients to create something really beautiful and sentimental for their loved one
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I think there are some similarities between this piece that we're creating
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and some of the pieces that are in the Cheapside hoard. We've taken a very similar silhouette from the aglets that they used to wear on their clothing
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They use these aglets to fasten, with ribbons and fabric, the big puffy arms that they used to wear
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We like that silhouette, so we thought we would use that kind of same shape and form
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to create this pendant. It's made from 18-carat white gold, set with savourite diamonds
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and a secret lover's message will be sealed into the piece. I think one of the beautiful things about the Cheapside hoard
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was you could see a real evolution of sentiment, and we're still following it through today in pieces that we're making
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Over the centuries, London's jewellery trade migrated westward from Cheapside, eventually settling in the area around Hatton Garden
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This is where I did my apprenticeship, and where I'm still based
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Hatton Garden is home to craftsmen and traders from all over the world
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It was a similar picture three and a half centuries ago. At the time of the Cheapside hoard
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London's jewellery trade was dominated by emigre families. French Huguenots, craftsmen from the Low Countries, goldsmiths from Germany
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This was an international business in an international city. And it wasn't just the people involved in the jewel trade who came from overseas
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It was the jewels themselves. The jewels were the most important part of London's jewellery trade
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In the Cheapside hoard, there are gemstones from many parts of the world
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Lapis Lazuli from Afghanistan, turquoise from Persia, pearls from Bahrain. And here, in this really beautiful jewel in the form of a salamander..
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He's a cute little thing, isn't he? ..are emeralds from Colombia. And he might just make out in the tail..
14:00
Yeah, I can see the small rose cuts there. ..little tiny diamonds
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And where do you think they were from? I think the diamonds came from Burma or India
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So in this one jewel, you have the bringing together of the old and new world
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And London at the crossroads of this international, very sophisticated gem trade
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He's almost staring at you, isn't he? I notice he's got a little tongue in there
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You can just make out on the white enamel, tiny black dots to indicate teeth
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And on the underside, little flecks... Oh, beautiful detail. ..to indicate scaling
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I mean, when I was an apprentice, I was always taught a piece of jewellery should look just as fine and beautiful from the back
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as it should the front. And what a perfect example. So you mentioned in the hoard there are many, many different stones
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from all over the world. My question is, how those stones all got here
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And was it quite a risky business? It certainly was. And there's one document which refers to a jeweller, a Dutchman
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He'd spent about 30 years abroad gathering up gemstones and jewels. That collection must have been outstanding
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Well, certainly from the accounts of the time, the crew of the ship were just amazed by what they saw
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I can imagine. One of them described his cabin was almost afire with jewels for shining
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And then on the voyage back, it seems he was poisoned. Oh, my goodness
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And his body was tossed overboard. And then once the ship arrived off the English coast
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the ship's carpenter jumped ship with the booty and headed up to the capital
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He then tried to sell this material on the London market. Do you think some of these stones could have ended up in the hoard
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Well, there were many hundreds of thousands of them, and it's entirely possible
15:50
Yeah, it is, isn't it? Londoners' love of dressing up in adornment
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fuelled the international jewel trade. For the growing merchant class, wearing expensive jewellery was a way of signalling
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their newfound status and confidence. This is Margaret Cotton, the wife of a wealthy merchant
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You can see here she's wearing a ring on her little finger, just as we would do today
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But up here, you can also see she's had one sewn into her ruff
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Rings and other jewels were also attached to girdles and cuffs, basically anywhere you could show off your wealth
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Whether nouveau riche or royalty, high society in the early 17th century was all about display
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Wealthy women piled their hair high with eye-catching clasps and droplets. Fashionable men wore jewels sewn into their caps and cloaks
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Even as fashions became simpler and more restrained, ordinary items like buttons could still be encrusted with gemstones
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With such a demand for jewels and such large profits to be made
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it maybe wasn't surprising that some traders were prepared to cut corners
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So, Hazel, what do we have here? Two very different-looking objects. And intriguing objects too
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Let's just start quickly with this one, which is magnificent. Two fabulous sapphires and a very valuable gemstone
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a spinel, all from Sri Lanka. Beautiful piece. And the spinel has been drilled from both ends
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and the cutter's made a bit of an error and he started off drilling and gone quite wrong
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He started off drilling and gone completely off-line. Oh, you can see that. Rather like a zig-zaggy caterpillar all the way through
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I bet he was quite angry with himself drilling that. But you only get one go, I suppose
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Yeah. He must have been very annoyed. And particularly because the material was so valuable
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So, there was a real market for counterfeits. And this is one
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Now, it may not look it now because the colour has faded
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but when this was first made, it was probably akin to that
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I was wondering what this object was. So, what this was meant to look like was the rough spinel
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and therefore a very, very valuable stone. A man called Thomas Simpson, a jeweller in Cheapside
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had a business or sideline in counterfeiting spinels. And what I think he probably did was rock crystal was heated
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to kind of red-hot and then dropped into a bucket or container
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of cold dye-impregnated water. And that quench crackling, as it's known, induced a sort of thermal shock, opening up the fissures in the stone
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and then the dye could filtrate in. Did he make a lot of money out of this counterfeit business
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These were being sold at £7,000 or £8,000 apiece. Oh, my goodness. That's a lot of money in those days
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A huge amount of money. Gosh, what a rogue. Yes, absolutely. What a rogue
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Policing the jewellery trade was one of the main jobs of the company of Goldsmiths
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In the courtroom at their headquarters near Cheapside, they could pass stiff sentences on jewellers found guilty
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of having sold substandard or counterfeit goods. Today, the Goldsmiths company still has a major role in quality control
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In the back rooms of Goldsmiths Hall, gold and silver is tested for purity
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literally to check whether it comes up to scratch. It's a process that hasn't changed since the 17th century
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Jewels also come to the asset office to be stamped with the famous leopard head hallmark
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It's one of the oldest brand logos in the world, identifying a jewel as made in London
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and giving its quality in carats and its year of manufacture. But when it comes to the Cheapside hoard, there's a problem
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Although larger gold and silver pieces were routinely hallmarked in the 17th century
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none of the jewels from the hoard were ever stamped. So when it comes to dating the hoard, we have to rely on other clues
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What we have here is a watch. It's a really sophisticated timepiece with calendar indications
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The detailing on it is beautiful. But also, thankfully, it bears the signature of the maker
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The initial G and then ferlite for Gautier ferlite. Do we know this watchmaker? How far off date was he
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Thankfully, yes. His father worked as the pastor of the Italian church in London
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And then, after his death, his mother remarried and the small family moved back to Geneva
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And then Gautier was apprenticed a clock watchmaker and by the turn of the century, 1590, 1600, was master of the company
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And the watch probably dates to about 1610, 1620. But the really crucial bit of dating evidence for the hoard
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is this tiny piece, so from a quite large object to something really small
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so small that it's been completely overlooked. This is a small Cornelian seal, is it
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Exactly. And even with the damage, you can just about work out
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that it's the heraldic badge of William Howard, Viscount Stafford. Now, Lord Stafford was created Viscount in 1640
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So this little gem really is a very important part of the hoard because it gives us a date
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The presence of this tiny little piece indicates that the hoard has to have been buried after 1640
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William Howard's triumph at becoming a Viscount wasn't long-lasting. This was the tense lead-up to the English Civil War
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and because the Howards had Catholic and Royalist sympathies, they left for the continent
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In 1649, the same year as the king was executed, Lord Howard's estate was seized by Parliament
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It's possible that the family jewels were sold off at this time
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finding their way into the Cheapside Hoard. Could the Civil War help answer that other great mystery
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Why was the hoard buried? And why was it never retrieved? David, do you think the Civil War had a big impact on the history
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of the Cheapside Jewelry Trade? I think it definitely did. We don't have many references
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but there is this entry in January 1643 when the Beedle, who collects the subscription, if you like, from the company
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who says he's been doing it for 18 years, and this last half year he's tried to collect money from people
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but he says there's no-one to collect it from. He says, some have gone for soldiers and many shops shut up
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So do you think that one of these soldiers could have been responsible for burying the hoard
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and then unfortunately went off to war and got killed and never came back to reclaim it
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It's quite possible, and it seems to fit reasonably well with the dating of the objects in the hoard
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so that is certainly one possibility. And do you think there could have been any other reasons
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why somebody would bury a hoard? There were, from time to time, bouts of plague
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and that was, of course, another reason why things might have been buried
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Fear of getting the plague, where people would perhaps bury their worldly goods
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and then take off out of the city. Why not just take your stock with you
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I suppose there was the fear that you may not be sure where you're going to and for how long
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and it might be safer to bury it in one fixed place, and then you could return when times were better and more certain, perhaps
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Civil war and plague might be reasons why the hoard was buried and forgotten
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but there is another intriguing possibility, and it lies in that other great calamity of the 17th century
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The Great Fire of London. Cheapside was ground zero, pretty much the dead centre of the huge swathe of the city
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destroyed by the Great Fire. If you'd been here on Wednesday 5th September 1666
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you would have had to pick your way through a smouldering ruin of charred timbers and globs of melted glass and lead
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Cheapside had been totally wiped out. But below ground, it was a different story
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There were deep cellars down here that survived the devastating firestorm. When the goldsmiths' company eventually rebuilt their property
25:05
on 30-32 Cheapside, they'd just used the old, undamaged vaults as foundations
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And it was in this pre-fire lair that the demolition gang discovered the hoard centuries later
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So was the hoard buried by someone fleeing the inferno, someone who, for whatever reason
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wasn't able to return to dig it up again. It's a romantic idea, isn't it
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The fire that destroyed London, preserving this perfect time capsule of its past
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But the truth is, there's actually not much more evidence to support it
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than any of the other theories that have been suggested from time to time
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In the end, the hoard of jewels discovered here, beneath Cheapside, is going to have to remain a mystery
25:53
And I think that's at least partially why we're still so entranced by it
26:03
The Cheapside hoard is magical, alluring, truly wonderful. As you walk around the exhibition, you're constantly dazzled
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not just by the beauty of the pieces, but by the tantalising traces of vibrant human lives
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If I could take any piece home from the Cheapside hoard, it would have to be this exquisite scent bottle
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Made from gold, coated in enamel and set with beautiful gemstones, you have Hungarian opals, Indian diamonds
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sapphires, pink and blue, from Sri Lanka. When I saw it first, I instinctively wanted to pick it up and smell the scent
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Obviously, that evaporated hundreds of years ago. But the woman who owned it, how did she wear this scent bottle
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Was it round her neck? Did she drape it off her dress? While driving through the smelly streets of London in those days
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a smell from this bottle, was that her escape? This is a truly exquisite piece of jewellery
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I hope the lady who owned this treasured it as much as I do
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One of the reasons that we're so entranced by gold and gemstones
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is because their beauty never fades. But I think the jewels of the Cheapside hoard
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offer something even more compelling. A magical glimpse into the vanished lives of those who have gone before
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Their pride, greed and deceit. Their love, joy and devotion. All expressed through these objects of timeless beauty
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