Richard Randolph; His Seal , First Vicar of Audlem

A few of us were serving refreshments inside Church on Sunday , whilst the Transport Parade was taking place, when we were approached by a gentleman metal detectorist who enquired if we were interested in looking at the personal seal of the very first incumbent of St James the Great.

He then produced a small bronze seal of Richard Randolph, vicar of Audelyme 1311
The large memorial board which hangs on the wall to the right hand side of the main West entrance records his name and the fact that he was only in place for one year. He moved on to Lichfield which is where his seal, presumably became detached from his ring and ended up on the town rubbish dump. ---- or could it have been allotments, as presumably the careful folk of Lichfield would rather sweep up the street manure for fertilizer rather than to garner points for 'Olde England in Bloom' competition.
But there again I might be wrong, as the saintly Janet often points out....

Colin Pearson is the gentleman who found it and did the research. He said he does about 5 days a week with his machine and has made many other interesting finds, amongst them a small Saxon silver penny from approx. 760 ad which had been pierced.

This would have taken it out of circulation at the time so it must have been a wealthy individual to do that, as it would have bought all the bread in Sainsburys for several months. Probably a distant relation of Elon Bezos...

Peter Morgan