With buried treasure finds, winning Lottery tickets and unclaimed estates, Lincolnshire residents are sitting on a literal goldmine, study reveals

Lincolnshire residents have been told they could be sitting on a fortune - literally.

The county has the second most unclaimed fortunes from estates, lottery prizes, and buried treasure, a new study has revealed.

It is also fourth in table of most buried treasure finds over the last 10 years.

There have been close to 700 buried treasure finds in Lincolnshire over the past decade, which may come as little surprise to some given the combination of our rich heritage of settlers including the Romans, Saxons and Vikings plus the historic wealth of the county.

The fact much of our land remains fields and lost beneath buildings is another important factor.

Martin Stokes of Digging History, a group which specialise in the south Lincolnshire area, says the county has ‘pockets’ of land where ‘good finds’ are waiting to be discovered.

“We find lots of medieval coins, we’ve found Roman and Saxon the other week,” he said.

“We’ve got such a great history, history we’re finding on the land.

“The Romans built Roman Bank, that was a sea defence, so everything inside that sea defence became arable land. It’s had lots of workers on it.

“When you think, in Roman times, Lincoln was the main place in the country, so the rivers in Lincolnshire, like the Witham, were used to trade and travel goods around, so there were lots of communities set up along the Lincolnshire river systems.

“And as you go out towards Boston - Boston’s wealth was built on the wool trade - so we’ve had a lot of trade come through the area.”

With 131 unclaimed estates and 238 buried treasure finds since 2012, Cambridgeshire was found to be home to the most ‘gold mines’, according to the study put together by casino.org.

However, Lincolnshire claimed the second highest ‘gold mine rating’ thanks to 686 cases of buried treasure being found over the past decade.

While the number of unclaimed estates in the area is relatively low, at just 56, Yellowbelly county still has two major unclaimed lottery wins.

Kent has the third-most gold mines and is also home to a large amount of buried treasure, with 634 finds since 2012.

When it comes to buries treasure, only Norfolk (1,201), Suffolk (776) and Essex (709) are higher.

“Lincolnshire has had some good finds over the years, all along the east coast because of most of the invasions in this country saw people come in from the east,” added Martin, whose group discovered a beautiful medieval brooch at Weston Hills last year.

But while we’d all secretly love to discover a winning Lottery ticket at the back of the sock drawer or stumble across King John’s lost treasure, Martin says there is definitely more to these finds than wads of cash.

“We say we’re discovering Britain’s history one field at a time, and for me it’s not about treasure, or monetary value, it’s about history,” he added.

“We use our hobby to get people outdoors, people with mental health issues love coming out, as do enthusiasts.

“Finding those objects and saving them from the plough, and from chemicals, is a great thing.

“We record our finds and have information for people to see what’s come up.”

The study also revealed that London has the largest number of unclaimed estates, with as many as 1,756 estates with no apparent heir while Norfolk has had the most cases of buried treasure since 2012, with 1,201 recorded finds.

Three counties tied for the most unclaimed big lottery wins over the past 10 years: Greater Manchester, West Midlands, and Greater London all have eight unclaimed lottery wins from tickets purchased locally.