Two hoards of Roman coins have been discovered by a metal detector from Kennington.

Father-of-two Joe Rainsbury, 43, of Bybrook Road, has had two sets of bronze and silver coins found on farmland near Ashford sent to the British Museum for analysis.

The 48 coins, some of which were uncovered with the help of nine-year-old son Ryley, date back more than 2,000 years to the time of rulers including Mark Antony and Antoninus Pius.

The location of the find cannot be revealed for security reasons.

Mr Rainsbury, a groundworker by trade, was particularly interested by a cut Roman coin from the time of Emperor Septimus Severus.

“I knew it was a cut quarter and it was Roman but I had never heard of one before,” he said.

“I always thought the idea of cutting coins came from medieval times when they designed the groat to be cut into quarters. I thought it was quite an interesting find.”

Kent’s finds liaison officer Jennifer Jackson noted that the coin dated to the period 202AD to 210AD and was made at the mint of Rome.

The 1.5 gram quarter also features part of an image of emporer Severus on horseback raising his right hand.

Mr Rainsbury, who found a 500,000-year-old axe last year, said he is more interested in historical finds than coins.

His dream is to find the UK’s oldest skull belonging to caveman homo heidelbergensis, the ancestor of the neanderthalsand homo sapiens.