 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Stuart Wilson told BBC Wales people thought he was "mad" when he bought the field in Trellech 
 
 An archaeologist who bet his life savings on a hunch he had found a lost medieval city in Monmouthshire has said people thought he was "mad". However, Mr Wilson, a member of Monmouth Archaeological Society, said in the mid 1200s it became the centre of iron production for the army of the de Clare family. If the location theory was right, then this field would incorporate most of the east side of old Trellech's main street. He said he had so far pinpointed eight buildings, adding: “We’re finding building after building after building.” 
 
 A manor house, thought to have included two halls and a courtyard, may be the most spectacular but Wilson is fond of a well that was unearthed containing pieces of wood, bone and leather. “They are clearly lucky.” 
 
 Wilson said the city was once home to about 10,000 people, perhaps a quarter of the size of London’s population at the time. "You up-sticks - to hell with your land - 'let's move to the industrial town where the opportunity is'." "If I had not found anything it would have been a nice place for a picnic," he said, "but it was not as big a risk as people think."
– Stuart Wilson says people thought he was crazy when he gambled $39,000—his life savings—on a 4.6-acre field in Wales. Having heard a farmer's story about moles digging up bits of pottery on the land, the amateur archaeologist tells the Guardian he had a hunch that something important lay beneath, and when the parcel went on the market in 2004, he bought it. Now, it looks like his bet is paying off: He believes his land is sitting atop the lost city of Trellech—Wales' largest city in the 13th century, reports the BBC—and the Guardian reports his theory is starting to gain traction. Wilson, a former toll collector who got his undergrad degree in archaeology, estimates the project has cost more than $200,000, funded in part through donations (you can be an archaeologist for a day for $61). With help from some 1,000 volunteers, Wilson says he has so far discovered eight buildings, and he intends to spend 2017 working on the remains of what he believes is a manor house surrounded by a moat. In 2006, he told Archaeology.org that excavating the field "will probably take about 50 years, so basically the rest of my life." As for the history of the site, it was founded by the de Clare family in the 1200s as a hub that produced iron weapons and armor, and its population exploded. Per Wilson, in just 25 years it grew to 10,000 people—a quarter of London's size, though Wilson points out it took London 250 years to amass its 40,000 people. The BBC reports the de Clares' settlement is thought to have been destroyed in 1296. (Read about the seven biggest archaeology finds of 2016.)