The man leading the search for King John’s long lost treasure will be resuming his quest later this year – with the help of a ‘monster’ digger.
Raymond Kosschuk is confident that he has found the location of the treasure at an undisclosed site in Sutton Bridge after conducting tests over the last four years.
He invented a device which has picked up anomalies in the readings of magnetic fields around the site which are consistent with the high value items which were carried in the baggage train when it was lost to The Wash in 1216.
The determined Yorkshireman had been thwarted in his last two attempts to recover the treasure due to the heavily saturated ground conditions but is vowing to return in the late summer/early autumn to try again.
And this time he is bringing out the big guns in the form of a 45 tonne digger to aid his mission to make history.
He said: “We are ready to go. Spring has been bad but we will move forward.
“I am going to bring in a 45-tonne digger which has a longer reach and has a 3m bucket. This digger is a monster.
“In 2022 we were close.
“I believe it is about 25 feet down but it could be less. I am going to try again this year.
“We brought a digger in during September 2022 and we penetrated the ground to 15ft. When we got to 15ft the ground became like jelly due to the influx of water.”
During his search for the treasure, Mr Kosschuk has been undertaking a lot of research and says there is documentation that shows that William Marshall had made the ill-fated decision to cross The Wash.
The First Earl of Pembroke has been dubbed Britain’s greatest knight and worked for four kings – including John, his father Henry II and brother Richard I – during an illustrious career which included seeing off a French invasion force.
Mr Kosschuk said: “William Marshall was with King John. There are documents that say William Marshall crossed that area in the spring to suppress an uprising of the barons. It was on horseback and not with carts.
“William Marshall was the greatest knight in England. He went across in April 1215 on horse back. The crossing in October was with carts. The tides in spring are different.”
Mr Kosschuk is not the only one who is hoping to find the baggage train as a dig is also scheduled to take place in nearby Walpole St Andrew by members of West Norfolk and King’s Lynn Archaeological Society.
Mr Kosschuk is confident his theory will be proven right, however. He said: “This is the head of the baggage train. I have many anomalies and this train would have ran over from the Lincolnshire to West Norfok boundary.
“I have identified 13 anvils that they would have used to fix anything that was broken.
“There are anomalies in the periodic table. On this area there are anomalies of silver and that was in the carts. People carried silver pennies.
“We will move forward this year.”
