The great probability, therefore, appears to be that some powerful monarch, or confederacy, owned the chest, and that its burial near one of the three fords at the "pass of the Ribble" was caused by some signal discomfiture or military defeat, in order to prevent its falling into the hands of the enemy. Its non-recovery afterwards would naturally result from the slaughter of the parties acquainted with the precise locality of its deposit in the disastrous riot attendant upon so great victory as that achieved by Athelstan at Brunanburh. Tradition had, however, preserved the memory of its burial, but the exact site was unknown. It was popularly thought, however, that it could be seen from the hill on which the church of Walton-le-dale stands, and which overlooks all the three fords which constituted the "famous pass of the Ribble." The late Mr. Barton F. Allen, of Preston, remembered that in his youth a farmer ploughed a field which had remained in pasture from time immemorial, in hope of finding the treasure. At the time I came upon the Roman remains, near the great central ford, 1855, I was surprised to learn a rumour was abroad that we had "come on't goud" at last. This resulted from the fact that the Anglo-Danish hoard consisted entirely of silver, and the belief of the workmen that the Roman brass coins, found at the time, from their colour, when polished, were golden ones. I therefore contend that these facts (taken in conjunction with the more important one, that the date of the deposit, as demonstrated by the coins themselves, coincides with that of Athelstan's great victory), indicate, in a very high degree, the probable connection of the two events. The burial of treasure, in times of great disaster, was a very ordinary occurrence during the Roman dominion in Britain, and was not unusual with their successors, the Anglo-Saxons and Danes. Two hoards, one found at Walmersley, to the north of Bury, and the other at Whittle, near the present presumed site of Athelstan's victory, to the south of the Ribble, from the date of the coins, coincide with the time of the defeat of the usurpers Carausius and Allectus, commanders of the Roman fleet stationed to protect the shores of Britain from the ravages of Saxon pirates. Later the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says--"A. 418, this year the Romans collected all the treasures that were in Britain, and some they hid in the earth, so that no one has since been able to find them; and some they carried with them into Gaul." Ethelwerd's Chronicle furnishes further details--"A. 418. In the ninth year also, after the sacking of Rome by the Goths, those of Roman race who were left in Britain, not bearing the manifold insults of the people, bury their treasures in pits, thinking that hereafter they might have better fortune, which never was the case; and, taking a portion, assembled on the coasts, spread their canvass to the winds, and seek an exile on the shores of Gaul."