This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

An amateur prospector has discovered the UK’s largest gold nugget while lying face down in a Scottish river.

The British man, who has chosen to remain anonymous, described how he found the 85.7g (3.02oz) lump of gold through a process known as sniping, in which a snorkel is used to search the riverbed.

Named the Douglas Nugget, it is thought to be the biggest discovered in British waters for 500 years.

Leon Kirk, a gold panning expert based in Dumfries and Galloway, said the find was unprecedented and that the nugget’s rarity made it hard to put a price on it. “I would say it is worth at least £50,000 but, as it’s rarer than an Aston Martin or a Fabergé egg, a billionaire could easily come along and pay a lot more for it. Historically, it is off the Richter scale.”

The unnamed man, who is in his 40s, found the nugget two years ago, but the exact location had been kept secret to avoid a gold rush.

“I was following a crack in the bedrock and found around 2g in fine gold,” he said. “This then led to a pocket, where I uncovered the nugget. I called over my friend to have a look and we both assumed it to be around 5-7g in weight. It wasn’t until I removed it that we realised just how big it was.

“I took off my glove and picked it up, jumped out of the water and screamed ‘bingo!’ to my friend. We were both stunned and couldn’t believe it. I’ve never seen anything like it in my lifetime.”

He has stored the nugget in a safety deposit box. Found gold and silver is usually classed as belonging to the crown, and it is not clear whether the finder has received permission to remove it.

The largest gold nugget previously found in British waters was discovered in Cornwall in 1808 and weighed 59g.

Interest in Scottish gold is booming, according to Kirk, who runs gold panning courses at the Museum of Lead Mining in Wanlockhead, Dumfies and Galloway, one of Scotland’s three “gold belts”. Hundreds of people attended the recent Scottish and British gold panning championships in the village.

Amateur prospectors also head to Tyndrum in Perthshire and Helmsdale in Sutherland.

The first commercial gold mine in Scotland received full planning permission earlier this year. The company Scotgold hopes to extract an estimated 5,700kg of gold from Cononish mine near Tyndrum.