A real coup for the Detectorist

It is what every treasure-hunter dreams of – and what Mackenzie Crook depicted so compellingly in Detectorists – finding buried gold.

Now Crook has revealed that he has achieved that dream himself, unearthing a piece of Roman jewellery.

However, in a ‘heartbreaking moment’, he had to hand it over his find to the authorities. 

‘Anything that’s over 200 years old and made of precious metal is declared treasure and so I had to hand it over,’ he told the Glasgow Herald.

‘That was a bit of a heart-breaking moment and I’ll probably never see it again. But at the same time it’s a proud thing to know that I found something that is officially called treasure.’

His discovery, earlier this year, came despite the fact  he only gets out his metal detector ‘three or four times a year’.

And now he’ll have to hope he doesn’t fall victim to the ‘curse of the gold’, which he writes about in his acclaimed sitcom, in which detectorists fear a series of misfortunes after finding the precious  metal.

Detectorists returns to BBC Four at 10pm tomorrow.

Published: 7 Nov 2017