Our five minute guide to archaeological treasures and the National Trust:

Avebury, Wiltshire

Alexander Keiller inherited a fortune made by marmalade. His money from the family business funded his abiding passion: archaeology. Keiller bought part of Avebury village, long known for its great Prehistoric stone circle a quarter of a mile across. He set about re-erecting toppled stones and excavating the site in the 1930s and moved into Avebury Manor.

© NTPL / David Noton

Keiller's incredible collection of finds is on display in the Keiller Museum at Avebury. Treasures on show include fragments of pots from Stone Age people and a 5,500 year old dog's skeleton. Also look out for the coins and a pair of scissors found with a crushed skeleton under a fallen stone during the excavations. The stone is named the Barber-Surgeon's Stone after the unfortunate victim's surmised occupation.

Bodiam Castle, East Sussex

This 14th-century pilgrims' badge was unearthed at Bodiam Castle in 1970 and is now a star piece in the collection there. It was found by Robertsbridge and District Archaeological Society near one of the castle’s original drawbridges. The lead badge was almost perfectly preserved due to the silt it had been buried in.

© National Trust / George Bailey

Pilgrim's badges were collected by pilgrims on their visits to holy sites. It is believed that Bodiam’s badge came from a small abbey on the Canterbury trail, which was destroyed when monasteries were dissolved in the 1500s. The badge has been dated to the late 14th century and depicts Christ on the cross under a medieval-style archway. His forked beard matches facial hair-styles of the period.

Chedworth Roman Villa, Gloucestershire

Little did a Victorian gamekeeper realise, when in 1864 he stumbled across fragments of ceramics in a field, that lying just below his feet was a tantalising leftover from a lost empire. The two year excavation that followed uncovered one of the largest Romano-British villas in the country. In particular, the Dining Room contains a mosaic that would rival Pompeii.

© NTPL / Ian Shaw

The mosaic's three-part design richly interweaves figures with geometric patterns. In the centre, mythological satyrs and maenads cavort and make merry in a Bacchic celebration. Watching from the boundaries are Spring and Winter: pixie-like Winter, gripping tight to his dead hare, keeps warm in his hooded cape while the coquettish Spring runs gaily with a bird in one hand and flowers in the other.

Corfe Castle, Dorset

This 18th-century witch's bottle was fittingly unearthed just before Halloween in 2005. Found on the Purbeck estate in Dorset, the diminutive 6 inch vessel is a token of 18th-century witchcraft and superstition, used to lure evil spirits.

© National Trust

The bottle is only one of four ever found still with its contents intact. Traditionally witch's bottles held custom-made spells representing their hapless victims. Testing revealed the rather pungent dark, syrupy liquid inside our bottle to be mainly saline solution covered with a layer of decayed animal fat; perhaps a concoction to ward off horned cattle distemper, the foot and mouth of the period.

The witch's bottle is currently on display in the Visitor Centre at Corfe Castle along with finds from the Castle.

Sutton Hoo, Suffolk

The interlaced serpents on the great gold buckle, found at Sutton Hoo, almost appear to twist and turn before your eyes. The massive buckle, we think, was made locally sometime in the 7th century. Its unsurpassed craftsmanship signals the power and wealth of the man who wore it.

© British Museum

That owner is thought to be Raedwald, Anglo-Saxon King of East Anglia, laid to rest in a huge 27m long ship surrounded by a wealth of treasures. Sutton Hoo kept his grave secret for more than 1300 years, until the brink of the Second World War when excavations unearthed one of the richest graves ever found in Europe.

The great gold buckle forms the centrepiece of a display in the Exhibition Room at Sutton Hoo in 2006.