This archaeological hoard of 5,252 coins was discovered in the village of Lenborough in December 2014.The coins were found wrapped in a lead sheet and buried in the ground for safekeeping. The coins are of Æthelred II (978-1016) and Cnut (1016-35), and were buried towards the end of Cnut’s reign. They include one specimen of the excessively rare and historically important ‘Agnus Dei’ type, probably issued in 1009 as part of a programme of prayer and penitence to ward off Viking attacks.The lead wrapping provided protection against the elements, while the hoard was in the ground, with the result that the coins are very well preserved. The hoard contains coins from over forty different mints around England and provides a rare source of information on the circulation of coinage at the time the coins were buried.The hoard comes from a period when re-coinages were being undertaken frequently, recycling the bulk of the currency although, as in this case, collections of earlier coinage would sometimes be held back as savings or for private usage. The Lenborough find may shed light on how and why some coin-users retained earlier currency. Unfortunately, there is no obvious clue about the identity of the owner or the context of its collection, concealment and non-recovery.It was no small sum as 5,252 pennies amounted to £21.17s 8d [£21.88] in contemporary currency. A single penny at the time had considerable value – probably tens of pounds sterling - and the total content of the hoard was more than most estates recorded in Domesday Book would be expected to produce in a year. It is clearly a lot more than most of the population would ever have handled on one occasion.