KING JOHN'S TREASURE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21948, 9 May 1933, Page 9

KING JOHN'S TREASURE

700 YEARS' OLD SECRET SEARCH FOR LOST WEALTH PLAN TO COMB THE FENS. Is the 700-year-old secret of King John's treasure to be discovered at last? That question is the main topic to-day for nearly 20 miles around the_ Wash (says a correspondent of the Daily Express). During the centuries many adventurers -have set out vainly to seek in the fens for the lost royal wealth, until Cambridgeshire people lost all interest in King John and his treasure. But to-day, owing to' the businesslike preparations which have been made by Een Research, Ltd., a private company, things are claimed to' be entirely different.

The directors are three young men prominent in society—Mr Gaspard Ponsonby, son of the treasurer to the King; Lord Francis Hill, brother of the Marquess of Downsluve; and Mr Simon Elwes, portrait painter. The company, which has a nominal capital of 100(3 £1 shares, is backed by a Crown concession. It has been negotiating with farmers and landowners for 10 miles round. A strip of land, half a mile wide and from 10 'to 12 miles long, running between Sutton Bridge and Wisbech, has been chosen as the area in which the treasure most probably lies. It is mostly agricultural land, which during the last few centuries has been reclaimed from the shallow waters of the Wash. The company has paid a number of farmers and 'landowners 5s for each acre which they intend to investigate. A large farm has been rented as headquarters, and when the negotiations for prospecting rights over the strip of land have been completed work will begin at once with an electric " divinator." This instrument will detect the presence of precious metals at any ordinary depth, and as soon its promising indications are given the land is to be dug. C A farmer whose laud is in the area known as King John's Bank, across which the King's two-mile baggage train is said to have crossed, and who has signed a contract with the prospectors, said: "The contract allows them to open up and excavate or make borings, sink shafts, drive level's, or to erect any machinery or building they like on (lie land. -They may also remove as their own property all antiquities, bones, vessels, models and objects of rarity, art, or value which they find.