414 HORSE-SHOES AND HORSE-SHOEING. 



pieces of silver coin, of a description they had never seen 

 before. 



Sir Oswald Mosley, Bart./ in referring to the history of 

 this Earl of Lancaster, gives the following account of the 

 finding of these coins : ' Mr Webb, the proprietor of the 

 cotton mills at Tutbury, being desirous to obtain a greater 

 fall for what is commonly termed the tail-water of the wheel 

 which works the machinery of his mill, prolonged an 

 embankment between the mill-stream and the river much 

 farther below the bridge than it formerly extended ; and 

 as a part of his plan, it became requisite to remove a con- 

 siderable quantity of gravel out of the bed of the river, 

 from the end of his water-course as far up as the new 

 bridge. While they v/ere engaged in this operation, on 

 Wednesday, the ist of June, 1831, the workmen found 

 several small pieces of silver coin about sixty yards below 

 the bridge ; as they proceeded up the river, they continued 

 to find more ; these were discovered lying about half-a- 

 yard below the surface of the gravel, apparently as if they 

 had been washed down from a higher source. On the 

 following Tuesday the men left their work in the ex- 

 pectation of finding more coin, and they were not dis- 

 appointed, for several thousands were obtained that day ; 

 as they advanced up the river they became more suc- 

 cessful ; and the next day, Wednesday, June the 8th, 

 they discovered the grand deposit of coins from whence 

 the others had been washed, about thirty yards below the 

 present bridge, and from four to five feet beneath the 

 surface of the gravel. The coins were here so abundant, 

 that one hundred and fifty were turned up in a single 



' History of the Town and Houses of Tutbury. 



