With all the many stories of lost and hidden treasures, how intriguing do you think it will be to find out that your house was sitting on a fortune or a piece of history all these while? If you just moved into a new house perhaps, but for Colin and Vanessa Steer couples who have lived in their gorgeous dream terrace home for over two decades, they would never have thought there was an inch of the house they didn’t know well.

But the couple made a shocking discovery when they found a part if their home they never knew existed and which might in fact contain an intriguing piece of history. Colin and Venessa noticed that a part of the floor in their living room was dipping inwards since the couple had three young children in their home, they decided to just fill it up for safety purposes.

“I was replacing the joists in the floor when I noticed a slight depression – it appeared to be filled in with the foundations of the house,” he told the Telegraph. “I dug down about one foot but my wife just wanted to me to cover it back up because we had three children running around at the time.”

The couple forgot about it but Colin kept wondering about what was in the hole but didn’t bother about it for a long time. Many years later when their kids were all grown up, he decided to have another look at the sunken area of the living room once again.

“I always wanted to dig it out to see if I could find a pot of gold at the bottom,” he said.

The retired civil servant hoped like many of us, to uncover some hidden treasures in his old home. With the help of one of his neighbors, Colin was able to dig a 30-inches wide 17 feet deep hole after about 3 days of digging.

“I was quite surprised really, I would have preferred it to be in the garden where I could have got at it a little easier.”

It ended up taking about six months to get to the bottom of the hole and which was about 33 feet down. Colin suddenly realized that their home was sitting on a medieval well that dated back to the 16th century. But that wasn’t all they found. They found an old sword as they excavated the well.

“It was hidden at a 45-degree angle and sort of just fell out. It looks like an old peasant’s fighting weapon because it appears to be made up of bits of metal all knocked together,” he said.

The father of three also unearthed two German weapons in his gardens and the bomb squad had to be invited to remove the devices.
For a house with such an amazing history, Colin had no idea when exactly it was built.

“There could have been a couple of cottages here or it could have served a farm. I’d like to find something down the bottom, something to give me an age. I wish I had a Tardis to go back in time and see what was here.”

Colin hopes to literally keep “digging” till he gets to the root of the matter as he believes it might hold an important piece of history.

“I love the well and think it’s fascinating. I’d love to find out who was here before us. I’ve got a piece of Plymouth’s history in my front room.”

His wife doesn’t seem to share the sentiment as she is concerned about what it would mean to the value of their property.

“I hate the well,” Vanessa said. “But I suppose it is quite a feature. When we come to sell the house I just hope it’s not a white elephant in the room.”

She won’t have to worry about that especially if Colin ends up discovering something quite intriguing about the history of their house and the well in it. For now, he should probably keep digging around and see what he can find.