Treasure hunt novice strikes gold

A Scottish game warden who bought a metal detector for a new hobby discovered a £1m hoard of Iron Age jewellery - on his first outing.

Five days after taking delivery of the £240 metal detector and seven steps into his first treasure hunt, David Booth unearthed four 2,300-year-old torcs made of pure gold.

It has been described by experts variously as "prime Iron Age bling" and the most significant discovery of Iron Age metalwork in Scotland, reports The Times.

Mr Booth, 35, a warden at Blair Drummond Safari Park in Stirlingshire, said: "I saw a glimpse of one of them, then uncovered the rest of the hoard.

"They were in a wee group. Half me was saying, 'that does look important', but I was thinking I couldn't be that lucky on my first go.

"I took them home, gave them a wee clean up and went online. I looked at some torcs and kind of guessed this was iron age history."

After taking delivery of his detector, Mr Booth practised for an hour in his kitchen and garden before going out into a local field with the landowner's permission.

"I parked up and got the metal detector out," he recalled. "There was an area of flat ground behind the car, and I thought, I'll just scan this first, before I head out into the field. Literally about seven steps behind where I had parked, I found them."

His next move was to e-mail a picture of his find to the Treasure Trove Unit, at the National Museums of Scotland.

Mr Booth stands to earn a reward equivalent to the market value of his record find - he says £1m "would be lovely" but he'd settle for paying off his Ford Focus.