The coins, mostly from Mercia and Wessex, indicate that the hoard was hidden, possibly to protect it from Viking raiders, in around 868.

This may predate the earliest known smelting of the metal (which requires extremely high temperatures) and has led to speculation that it may have been produced during a visit by Rudolf Erich Raspe to Happy-Union mine (at nearby Pentewan) in the late eighteenth century.

Raspe, best known as the author or translator of the Baron Munchausen stories, was also a chemist with a particular interest in tungsten.

[8][9] The legendary Cornish smuggler Cruel Coppinger may have been based on John Copinger, said to have purchased the Trewhiddle estate in the 1790s.

[11] Little evidence remains of the former house other than a capped-off well and a small portion of the former walls which have been built into the landscaping.