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About 200 artefacts have been unearthed after two Bronze Age hoards were found by metal detectorists. A 13-year-old girl uncovered a hoard of about 65 axes and other items on her third detecting trip in a field near Royston, Hertfordshire, and another hoard was found close by. Archaeologists excavated about 200 items from the adjacent sites. The council said the hoards could be related and both were being treated as potential treasure. The items were being sent to the British Museum where experts will examine them. The first hoard, including axe heads dating from about 1300BC, was found in September...

43-year-old Matt Doughty from Hertfordshire couldn't believe his eyes when he watched the footage back. Doughty, along with his friend Kevin, had been sitting at home watching the football on TV when he received an alert on his phone from his doorbell camera to tell him that someone was outside. When he played back the footage he expected to see a person standing on his doorstep, but was surprised to discover that the camera had instead been triggered by something in the sky. The object, which consisted of three bright lights in a triangular formation, could be seen slowly moving...

The Iron Age coins—known as potins due to the copper, tin and lead alloy used to make them—each measure about 1.2 inches in diameter. They show stylized images representing the Greek god Apollo on one side and a charging bull on the other. In England, potins have mostly been found around Kent, Essex and Hertfordshire. People in Britain may have begun making the coins around 150 B.C. The earliest versions were bulky disks known as Kentish Primary, or Thurrock, types. Comparatively, the newly discovered potins—now dubbed the Hillingdon Hoard—are of the “flat linear” type, which uses simplified and abstracted images....

Police arrived at the home of an Oxford-educated museum curator last night after she tweeted a guide on how to use domestic chemicals to destroy bronze statues in the wake of recent Black Lives Matters protests. Madeline Odent, the privately schooled curator of Royston Museum in Hertfordshire, sent an inflammatory series of tweets last night to her 5,164 followers, which was then shared thousands of times. In the posts, the American-born banker's wife revealed how to dissolve bronze statues, saying that the damage would be 'irreversible' and 'practically impossible to stop'. She then hinted that her next target was Winston...

GERMAN film-makers' quest for the Holy Grail brought them to Royston Cave in search of clues left by the Knights Templar. The film crew from state TV channel ZDF — the German equivalent of the BBC — visited the cave last Friday to examine carvings by the Templars, who were warrior monks thought to be the guardians of the Holy Grail. Peter Houldcroft, manager of the caves, said: "The cave is completely man-made and it has been believed for some time that there was somebody connected to the Knights Templar who carved the cave. "The appeal of the cave is...

A sick thug told a four-year-old girl in a wheelchair she was a "drain on society" and shouldn't be alive. Little Quinn Ross was left "traumatised" after the shameless lout approached her, her mum Emma and ten-year-old brother Alex in an alleyway. Emma, 32, managed to push the man away and police in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, are now investigating the hate crime . "The man was yelling in her face, saying she shouldn’t have been born, she was a drain on the NHS, a drain on society and that I should have had her aborted if I’d known she was going...

More of the ancient Roman city of Verulamium’s secrets have been discovered by archaeologists. The burnt remains of a 1,800-year-old kiln - a type of oven used to create pottery - have been unearthed during excavations of the ancient city near the modern city of St. Albans in Hertfordshire, Great Britain.

A man in England went exploring with a metal detector and made the discovery of a lifetime: an exquisitely preserved Roman-era grave filled with artifacts, including bronze jugs, mosaic glassware, coins and hobnails from a pair of shoes, all dating to about A.D. 200. The grave likely belonged to a wealthy individual, said Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews, the archaeology and outreach officer for the North Hertfordshire District Council. Once Fitzpatrick-Matthews and his colleagues located the grave, they also found evidence of a nearby building, likely a shrine or temple, attached to a villa. The man with the metal detector, Phil Kirk, found...

...near Letchworth. Archaeologists have found a circular area about 50 metres wide surrounded by a bank at Stapleton's Field in Norton. North Herts Archaeology Officer, Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews said: "Henges are quite rare with only 60 known in the UK, so this is a significant find. It's interesting as the only other henge known locally is on Western Hills, which is visible from the site we are working on." ...The archaeologists are able to date the henge because of pottery they found which is associated with the Bronze Age... Henges are only known to occur in Britain and Northern Ireland. They...

Mysterious carvings inside a hidden cavern linked to the Knights Templar are in danger of disappearing before their riddle is solved. Having survived more than 700 years, the religious decorations in the ancient cave at Royston, Hertfordshire, are under attack from an infestation of worms eating the chalk walls behind them. The beehive-shaped chamber was hewn out of a 180ft-thick seam of chalk and extends 30ft beneath the centre of the market town, underneath a betting shop. It was uncovered by chance during building work in 1742 and the depictions of biblical scenes and portraits of Christian martyrs inside it...