A TREASURE-HUNTER who found a knife and medallion in a wood was always intrigued by the details engraved on the two fine silver objects.

Twenty years after making the find with his metal detector, Gerry Chandler finally decided to satisfy his curiosity and pursue a trail of clues that led him to the former home of an Oxford GP and former mayor of the city.

Mr Chandler, who had previously discovered Roman and medieval coins, found the silver fruit knife, dating from 1860, buried by the roots of an oak tree near Bath University, where he was then working in the computer services department.

Engraved on the knife was the name A.M. Gillett, which he initially assumed was the name of the blade manufacturer.

But he was equally intrigued by the medallion, engraved with the legend Christopher B. Wolff 111 Banbury Road.

Mr Chandler said he had always assumed the silver items were Victorian, and its owners long since dead.

He thought there was even less chance of finding any owner, when he found that the building on Banbury Road was now the home of d’Overbroeck’s College, North Oxford.

But thanks to help of the school’s principal, Sami Cohen, and Denise Bright, a local genealogy enthusiast who became intrigued with the story, the rightful owner of the silver items has been traced.

Christopher Wolff turns out to be a celebrated physician and physiologist who lives in Cambridge.

Now aged 68, Mr Wolff had lived at 111 Banbury Road during the war. It was the home of his grandfather, Dr Henry Tregelles Gillett, an Oxford GP whose surgery was on the ground floor. Dr Tregelles later became Mayor of Oxford.

Mr Wolff thinks he lost the two silver items, given to him by his mother, when he was a 20-year-old undergraduate. Mr Wolff said: “I think the silver medallion was something I wore around my neck when I was very young, with my name and address on it in case I got lost.

“The knife was something that may have been important to my mother because it looks to have belonged to my great aunt Agnes Marion Gillett.

“My family moved to Bath and I think I must have lost the items while going out on a walk in the woods.

“I’m afraid that they could not have been in my possession very long and, to be honest, I can’t remember losing them.”

On Tuesday Mr Wolff had the chance to personally thank Mr Chandler and Ms Bright, who for many years worked at 111 Banbury Road as bursar when it was the Swan School of English.

She is a member of the genealogy group the Guild of One Name Studies.

Mr Chandler, who travelled to Oxford from Stony Stratton, Somerset, said: “I found them in 1990 but I waited so long because I thought both items were Victorian.

“It is always good to be able to hand over things that you find in the ground to the rightful owners.”

Mr Cohen said: “It was lovely to be able to put everyone in touch with each other. For us it was fascinating to hear what the building was like when Mr Wolff was living here in the 1940s.”