The Eadred Reliquary was one of the wide-ranging art forgeries produced by Shaun Greenhalgh and his family, of Bolton, Greater Manchester.

In 1989, Shaun Greenhalgh's father, George, tried to sell to Manchester University a supposed 10th-century Anglo-Saxon silver reliquary, containing a small piece of wood which he claimed was a fragment of the True Cross.[1] He said he had found the vessel while metal detecting in a park in Preston, Lancashire.

Shaun, who had crafted the object, intended it to resemble a known missing Anglo-Saxon piece, dating back to the time of Eadred, the King of England from 946 to 955. The British Museum decided that the reliquary was not genuine,[2] but the Greenhalgh family managed to sell it privately for a modest £100.[1]

Notes edit

  1. ^ a b Wainwright, Martin (12 January 2008). "'Artful Codger', 84, faces jail for fencing hoax art". The Guardian. Archived on 2 September 2012.
  2. ^ "'The Antiques Rogue Show'". The Guardian. 28 January 2008. Archived on 2 September 2012.