One day in the year 1812, in Heworth Chapel yard, near the boundary wall on the South Eastern side, some workmen were digging a grave when they made a discovery. The found a little clay post filled with mouldy earth in which, stuck together, were twenty three tiny coins. They handed them over to the Parson, John Hodgson, as was proper, and thus began an intriguing story.
The Township pf Nether Heworth had that year suffered a grievous calamity, for on May 25th the John Pit of Felling Colliery was shattered by a terrible explosion. For the rest of the year John Hodgson was deeply involved in the aftermath of the disaster. He had no time to think about the little pot and its contents. (click the thumbnail below left to view)
Early in 1813 he was busy promoting the newly formed Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle, and in October of that year he told his fellow members of the strange discovery in Heworth chapel yard. Over the following few months he corresponded with historians, coin collectors and the British Museum on the subject and carefully sorted south and cleaned the little hoard. There were twenty three tiny copper coins in the little pot, eleven of which were so poor that he disposed of them. The rest were legible, and they appeared to be Anglo Saxon STYCAS, minted for the Angle King Ecgfrith of Nothumbria. They were not perfectly round. The obverse side showed a plain cross with ECFRID REX inscribed, and the reverse side also had a cross with ray-like lines radiating from it and a curious mark like a V or Y. Ecgfrith ruled Northumbria from A.D. 675 to A.D. 685. If the STYCAS were minted in his reign, the latest date one can assign to them is A.D. 685. Anglo Saxon coinage of the 7th Centruy is very rare. If these coins were 7th Century stycas of Northumbrian origin, they were a most amazing find! How had they come to be deposited in the grave yard of Heworth Chapel?
King Ecgfirth was generous to the Church. He supported the building of St. Peter's Monastery at Wearmouth in A.D. 674. Pleased by the success of the project, he gave nine square miles of land on the South bank of the Tyne to Benedict Biscop in A.D. 681 to build and serve a second monastery. St. Paul, the 'twin' of St. Peter was built at Jarrow where the River Don flowed into the Slake, and dedicated a few months before the king was killed in battle against the Picts in A.D. 685. Bede said Ecgfrith himself chose the site for the high altar. Bede also tells us that St. Paul's first abbot, Ceolfrith, established dependent communities of monks and lay-men in the monastic lands and in later years after the death of Biscop, when he ruled both monasteries, he built 'chapels of ease'. From these the brothers would minister to the people of the monastic lands.
From 1808 till 1833 John Hodgson was the Perpetual Curate of Jarrow-with-Heworth and felt himself to be "occupying the chair of Bede." He studied the history of his Parish minutely and concluded that Heworth's connection with St. Paul's at Jarrow dated from the Anglo Saxon period: that Heworth was within the boundaries of the monastic lands. He became convinced that the pipkin with its small treasure which had come to light in Heworth was a direct link with the ancient monastery of Jarrow.

Even in 1812, when the stycas were found, his chapel at Heworth was in a deplorable state, hardly wind and weatherproof, and far too small. During the next ten years he directed plans to build a new church at Heworth, and by 1822 they were completed, the new church was finished and opened for worship. The dedication stone above the South door (in Latin) reads :-

"THE CHURCH OF ST. MARY, FOUNDED IN THE REIGN OF ECGFRITH, KING OF NORTHUMBRIA, AND RESTORED IN THE REIGN OF HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY KING GEORGE THE FOURTH. TO GOD ALONE IS THE GLORY. AMEN."
 

The statement "founded in the reign of Ecgfrith" was made with certainty. The proof lay in the little pipkin and its copper stycas, surely a dedicatory offering placed in the ground where Christians first worshipped in the village of Heworth. There was at least one doubter. Robert Surtees, Hodgson's friend, was in 1814 writing his 'History of the County Palatine of Durham'. He knew all about the pot and coins. In vol. 2, page 83, he described the pot, saying it seemed half-baked, and one of the stycas. He then added a note : - "I am, however, sceptical enough to doubt both device and legend. At all events, the coin is of extreme curiosity, as it precedes any other known issued of the Northumbrian mint nearly 150 years." The coin which puzzled him had been presented by Hodgson to the Newcastle Society of Antiquaries in 1814, with the pot. They now reside in a show case in the Museum of Antiquities in Newcastle University, among Anglo Saxon exhibits.
In 1984 the Rev. Ray Knell, Vicar of St. Mary's, Heworth, wrote to the Museum's curator to say that his church was about to celebrate its 1300th anniversary and suggesting that, as the pot and coin should be a special feature of any such celebrations, perhaps the Museum would verify that it was a dedication beaker of A.D. 685. The reply was unexpected. The Museum could not confirm the antiquity of the pot and the coin was undoubtedly a forgery! Subjected in 1981 to metallurgical analysis, its masquerade was revealed. Far from being ancient, it was of Georgian copper, scarcely any older than the date of its discovery. The pot did not fare much better. At best one can say that it is possibly medieval, but an impossible candidate for its role as a dedicatory vessel of A.D. 685.
When I discussed the forgery with staff at the Museum, one of them said, "It's an interesting hoax, and years earlier than the Piltdown Man!". Someone put the pipkin and coins in Heworth church yard deliberately; therefore they must have intended them to be found. But who? Was the person responsible merely playing a trick on John Hodgson? It was well known that he was embarking on a history of Jarrow after the success of his little book 'A Picture of Newcastle' published in 1812. Perhaps he had expressed a desire to prove an ancient link between Jarrow and Heworth. Someone may have tried to gratify that wish. As time passed it became too difficult to confess the deception, or the culprit may have been too ashamed to own up: and how he contrived to manufacture his false coins from Georgian coppers remains a mystery. It would require detailed historical knowledge, expertise with metal and somewhere to make the forgeries. It does not seem likely that any of the residents of Heworth would possess all three requisites. Even the gentlemen in the congregation were really farmers, not scholars. Two of them, John Thornhill, the clerk and schoolmaster, and Matthew Atkinson, of Carr Hill, farmer and miller, had accompanied John Hodgson on expeditions into Northumberland and Westmorland, devoted to gathering botanic specimens and making notes and drawings for Hodgson's contribution to the work 'The Beauties of England and Wales', but neither of these two friends were antiquarians.
Does all this mean that Heworth is not an ancient site of Christian worship? It cannot claim to be, without evidence. No archaeological evidence exists to show that people lived or worshipped as Christians in Heworth in Anglo Saxon times, but its name is significant. In the museum of Antiquities, close to the discredited pot and coin, is a cinerary urn of the 6th Century, recovered from an Angle cemetery at Heworth in the city of York. It is a district on the Malton road in the suburbs, and since pagan Angles were buried there it is logical to conclude that they lived there.. Certainly Heworth is an Old English place name. The two great experts, Eilert Ekwall and Professor Allen Mawer, agree that it is Anglo Saxon and means ' the settlement or farmstead enclosed by a high hedge or fence.' In the vicinity of Jarrow, besides Heworth, there are Hedworth and Usworth. When the Angles settled in Northumbria they often chose places near to Roman roads, and Heworth, Hedworth and Usworth are all near to Leam Lane. Robert Surtees says "The appellation 'Leam' was frequently applied by the Anglo Saxons to the remains of Roman Roads" (History of the County Palatine of Durham, vol, 2 p. 82.)
In 1973, Professor rosemary Cramp gave a lecture to Felling Local History Society on her archaeological discoveries and excavations at Jarrow Monastery. The possibility of Heworth being an Angle village was discussed and the significance of the pot and stycas. Professor Cramp did not even then place much reliance on the Ecgfrith coins and kept firmly to the need for physical evidence of occupation, but she did think that Pre-Conquest settlement in Heworth was likely, and, if so, then it probably was a farming and fishing community.
St. Mary's Church did not celebrate its 1300th birthday in 1985, but at least we do know, due to the careful tests carried out by university physicists, that the Heworth pipklin and the Heworth stycas are merely curiosities. J. M. Hewitt