Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:

• The renovation of a 17^th century long-house in England unearthed roughly 100 coins from during the first English Civil War.
• The coins were recently sold at an auction, fetching roughly $75,000.
• Lowering the floor of the farm’s cottage led the owners to the discovery.

This story is a collaboration with Biography.com.

In a remarkable discovery, a couple accidentally unearthed a treasure trove of 17th-century coins while renovating their farm in West Dorset, England.

The find, which occurred five years ago, came as the couple dug deeper to increase the head height in their long-house cottage at South Poorton Farm. Robert Fooks struck a glazed pottery bowl with his pickaxe, revealing about 100 coins dating back to the first English Civil War.

The “Poorton Coin Hoard,” as it became known, included gold coins from James I and Charles I, as well as silver half crowns, shillings, and sixpences from the time of Elizabeth I, Phillip, and Mary. The collection sold for approximately $75,000 at Duke’s Auction House.

“One evening,” Betty Fooks toldThe Guardian, “I was with the children and my husband was digging with a pickaxe when he called to say they’ve found something. He put all the coins in a bucket.”

The couple reported their find and sent the coins to the British Museum for cleaning and identification. Experts there told the Fooks that the coins were likely all hidden away at one time, sometime between 1642 and 1644, amidst the turmoil of the English Civil War.

Back then, when people hid coins, they weren’t just doing it to be cautious—they were often trying to survive. Both Parliamentarian and Royalist troops entered people’s homes to demand food and sometimes even steal valuables. So, ordinary families learned how to create secret caches in places like walls and pots to retrieve their items once the fighting stopped. But many of the people who hid their possessions never returned to find them.

“If you were a royalist or suspected royalist, you could have your estates sequestrated (seized) by the Parliamentary side and vice versa,” Waseem Ahmed, a doctoral student of history at University College London with expertise in 17th-century British political history, told Live Science.

At the time, Dorset was a strategic location for troop movements during the war, which culminated in victory for the Parliamentarian alliance and the capture—and eventual execution—of King Charles I. That’s where rich families like the Sydenhams and the Strangways shifted allegiances depending on which side held power.

In Lyme Regis, meanwhile, a Parliamentarian garrison famously withstood an 8-week siege in 1644, supplied by daring smugglers who ferried food and gunpowder through naval blockades.

And in rural areas like Poorton, villagers likely lived in constant fear that soldiers could arrive at any time. The hoard the Fooks discovered could have belonged to such a family.

The war left behind remnants of its chaos buried for over 400 years. “If we hadn’t lowered the floor, they would still be hidden there,” Betty Fooks told The Guardian. “I presume the person intended to retrieve them but never got the chance.”

Now, the Poorton Coin Hoard is adding another piece to the historical puzzle of a nation once gripped by civil war.