Stones of Destiny

A rare Celtic cross is stolen from Charlotte's auction house, after Lovejoy asks the porter to let a friend look at it. The friend, it turns out, had other plans, and Lovejoy's politeness costs him dearly. Charlotte and Lovejoy set out on the thief's trail and find themselves on a treasure hunt in the west of Wales.

The cross may have come from a coastal cave that once served as a Medieval church, which gives the hunt the proper flavour of a grail quest conducted through village lanes and cliff paths. But they are not the only ones after it. The pursuit draws in a cast of locals, and the romance between Lovejoy and Charlotte gets its own test when she turns down his invitation to share a bedroom at a village inn. The treasure hunt continues, unshared. It went out in October 1993 with a guest list that rewards repeat viewing: John Michie, later of Taggart and Holby City, plays Jacob, and Margaret John, known to a newer generation as Doris in Gavin and Stacey, is Mrs Thorn. The Welsh locations do much of the atmospheric work, with cliff paths and village inns standing in for any number of treasure-hunt films. Alan David's Bible Joe, meanwhile, is the kind of part that only a Welsh actor could make feel native.

Ian La Frenais, Jonathan Gash and Alan Clews wrote it, Jim Hill directed. Ian McShane is Lovejoy, Dudley Sutton is Tinker Dill, and Caroline Langrishe is Charlotte Cavendish. Diane Parish is Beth Taylor, Malcolm Tierney is Charlie Gimbert, Alan David plays Bible Joe, John Michie is Jacob, Maggie Ollerenshaw is Kate Henshaw, Margaret John is Mrs Thorn, and David Arlen is the Cavendish Porter.

The episode blends the academic thrill of artifact recovery with a genuine sense of place, and Wales has rarely looked so full of hiding spots. A stolen cross, a coastal cave, and a declined bedroom invitation: the show manages archaeology and courtship in the same breath, and loses neither.