A ploughman and his employer kept the Mildenhall Treasure at home for four years, used the dishes, and got a reduced reward

In January 1942, during the war, the ploughman Gordon Butcher turned up a metal dish at West Row near Mildenhall. He and his employer, Sydney Ford, an agricultural engineer who collected local antiquities, dug out more pieces as snow fell, 34 items in all. Ford took them home and had them straightened. He kept them for four years. He used some pieces daily and brought out the Great Dish on special occasions. The silver was taken for pewter until 1946, when a visitor, Dr Hugh Fawcett, saw it at Ford's house and recognised it as Roman. He reported it, and Ford had to declare it. On 1 July 1946 an inquest declared the hoard treasure trove and Crown property. The British Museum acquired it. Ford and Butcher received £1,000 each. Because Ford had delayed reporting, they did not get the full market value, and most of those involved doubted their account of the find. Roald Dahl wrote a story about it in 1947, which the British Museum curator Richard Hobbs has called partly fictional. Hobbs argues Ford knew what he had and kept it. The British Museum's 2016 catalogue covers 28 pieces, most made in the 4th century AD. The treasure is on permanent display at the British Museum; replicas are in the Mildenhall Museum.