Wow! The rain has stopped, the only trouble now is that the land is soaked AND frozen. We've been our on several occasions were the temps were hovering around -2C to +2C but have never had the ground so hard... ever!!

We had one run and decided that it was too difficult to dig. Besides, the conditions were such that any holes couldn't be accurately placed due to the solid surface, therefore risking damage to any hidden artefacts.

We moved to some pasture near the farmhouse and, as expected, we started finding lots of pre-decimal coinage and modern artefacts.
Good fun doing a bit of coin-shooting for a change.
We found 42 pre-decimal coins and other items all together.

The fun wore off a little so we looked for somewhere else to play.
We came across a field that was our very first field we visited at this farm in 2015.
It was in stubble and is home to a very large Roman settlement.
Within half-an-hour we had recovered 9 Roman grots and two denarii, one  of Julia Domna and one of Julia Maesa dated 200 AD and 218 - 222 AD respectively. 

With the light starting to fade we made our way back to the cars and the long journey home.

​Lets hope our intended field has thawed somewhat for next weekend!

​The link to all the images can be found here.

We've had a slow start, mid-season, for various reasons, the main one being another wet winter.
We're currently "enjoying" a dry spell...... but that means it's going to be cold, very cold. At least we can 'tog-up' wearing lots of layers and warm footwear.

The consensus is that we aim to finish of a field we started on the 27th November last year. The field was in stubble at the time and is about 24-acres in size. 

Fingers crossed for this Sunday and we'll report back as soon as!

We returned to the field we were in last week where we recovered 59 Roman coins and other artefacts including some nice Medieval buckles.

The difference with this visit was that we were joined by YouTube detectoress superstar 'Digger Dawn'.
Her record for finding Roman coins in a day was 5 and that was in Norfolk.
Dawn was hoping that this total could be beaten.

The weather was perfect, if a tad cool, with clear blue sky and the ground frozen with a 3-inch crust, but the underlying soil was very fluffy and easy to dig.

Within seconds of setting off the first Roman coin was recovered.
It wasn't long before more Roman coins were being uncovered by all the team.

Dawn realised her ambition of beating her previous total by finding nine Roman coins and a token Roman brooch fragment.
I think the total amount of Roman coins almost matched last weeks total of 59 with 3 Roman brooch fragments, a Roman button and loop fastener and a obligatory hammered coin.

As promised, here's the Flickr link to images of the finds recovered <Flickr>

Today, we headed for a field that we last visited in December 2021.
The field had been ploughed and drilled with wheat which was quite advanced in parts. This was probably due to the recent warm weather and then plenty of rain.

The day didn't start too well as two of the machines suffered coil problems from the start with a constant 'chattering' that made it very difficult to detect.
A change to the 9" HF coil sorted the problem and no further issues arose.

This site is a small Roman settlement situated on a Roman roadside and may have been some kind of retail site as there are many coins strewn around the area, especially along the road.
Oddly, the first coin to be recovered was a silver hammered penny of Edward I minted at Bury St Edmunds.
Another silver hammered coin was also recovered later on in the day in the form of a Elizabeth I penny minted at London.

Altogether, 58 Roman bronze coins, a denarius of Julia Domna and several artefacts were recovered.

The field is just over 23-acres so we only scratched the surface of it!

​Hopefully, we'll return before the wheat grows much more.

Images of the days finds can be seen here.

I've been involved with metal detecting since 1978.
Over that period I've gained some knowledge on the hobby.

Here we are in 2022, and I'm extremely happy to report that we are at a great stage in our progression. 
Even though our last season was disappointing, we still managed to recover some great artefacts.

I recently visited 3 detecting forums that I've not posted on for quite a while.
One in particular was extremely hostile to the free advice given.

I think I'll give the forums a miss and let them dwell on their pie-in-the-sky dreams. 

​On a MUCH brighter note, we're out this weekend.

Another early start visiting a field we only skirted around in 2016.
This is the field that the landowner asked us to search for a gold earring that was lost by one of the shooters. The lady that lost it was a very high ranking official in UNESCO. We did find it by the way :)

The weather wasn't too bad and the field was drilled with wheat.
It was looking good when fragments of Medieval pottery started to show.
A cut-half was the first Medieval artefact to see the light of day with a cut-quarter following as well as a nice small buckle.

Oddly enough, we ended up at the other end of the field that I suggested we search and on the return leg of the journey a signal was heard. It was another quite shallow signal, about 4-inches deep and when extracted the finders heart skipped a beat for a nano second. The finder said "Jeeps! I thought it was a piece of a gold coin". Now, thinking it was a piece of gold foil, brushing away a little of the soil revealed latin embossed wording around the circumference. Indeed, it was a gold hammered coin!

We carried on with the survey until the heavens openedand boy, did the sky open! Within 3-minutes we were soaked.

We called in at the landowners farmhouse to show them the first gold coin we'd ever found there since detecting at the estate in 2016.
After tea and biscuits we bid our farewell's and made the journey home.

We had notification that one of our permissions had been completely drilled up a few weeks ago.
The weather looked good for the Saturday so we made an 8am start on a field we'd not been on for 3-years as it had been returned to pasture.
Imagine our surprise when we saw that it had been 'worked' in August.

The wheat crop was showing through at about 4 inches in length.
Weather conditions were superb for the time of year with temperatures reaching 17C.

It took 90-minutes before any of the three of us had a decent find with only foil and bits of lead coming up.
The first find was a lead bell that had been flattened. On inspection, it had four faces equally spaced at 90 degrees around the circumference.
The FLO said that the bell was a pilgrims bell and was connected to Bridlington Priory and Saint John of Bridlington and dated just after his canonisation in 1401. The FLO added that when recorded on PAS, it should state 'Find of Note' and local importance.

Over the next eight and a half hours we recovered 4.5 kilos of Medieval pottery including 28 jug handle fragments. There were several other artefacts including Devil's Toe Nails, animal teeth, a boar's tusk, strapend fragments, finger rings, a lovely casket key and coinage.

Another find of note is a padlock of which there are no comparisons currently. Thoughts are it could be Roman or Early Medieval?
A  third find of note is a French jetton in remarkable condition dating 1380 - 1420.
Finally, a fourth find of note is a Viking penny of Eric Bloodaxe (2nd reign).

Altogether, there were 10 silver hammered coins, 5 Roman coins, a jetton  and a couple of pre-decimal.

A long day, but worth it in the end.

HD images of all the recoveries can be seen here.

We had a few days to explore some new land and a new (temporary) permission recently as well as catching up with the annual archaeological excavation at one of our permissions.

The excavation went well and this year was the final dig in the field where we discovered a substantial Roman building that was there from AD 79.
The site is ancient and dates right back to at least the Mesolithic period.
The great news from this particular farm is that two of the fields that were in grass have been worked in order to plant wheat again.
One of the fields where we discovered a Roman villa will have the grass there worked for a crop next year.
We have had some great results on one of the above worked fields a couple of weeks ago with some lovely Medieval items being recovered which can be seen here.
We can't wait until it's drilled with wheat in the next month or so!

One of the gamekeepers at an estate that we have permission told us about a field he once detected years ago at another farm with finds of Roman coins and a few brooches. He thought it might be a villa.
We gained temporary permission (2-days) from the landowner due to a detectorist already having permission.
Sure enough, there had been a substantial Roman building there with several wall bricks as well as roof and floor tiles.
Seeing that the area had been detected constantly for over 20-years we still managed to recover 7 Roman coins that can be seen here.
I recieved an email from the landowner and he was amazed at the amount finds we had recovered.
​Unfortunately, we didn't get further permission, even though they have 4 huge farms under there farming group. Never mind.

On to one of our estate permissions and we had a chance to survey another field that had crop marks that looked Roman.
An ancient trackway ran right through the field and crop marks, but very few items were recovered but the results can be seen here.
A large part of the estate has pasture which has quite a few humps and bumps. Although the ground was very dry, we still managed to find a few items covering the Roman to modern periods and these can be seen here.
We look forward to returning when the ground is much damper.

I think that our next outing will be 4-days on The Holy Island of Lindisfarne where we're fortunate to have permission to detect the trenches and spoil heaps of the ongoing archaeological dig there.
​The dig is a joint venture with Durham University and the fantastic DigVentures team.

We thought that previous seasons were a little unkind regarding the amount of outings we had. The 2021/2022 season was perhaps the worst in that respect.
Oddly enough, the finds we did recover were exceptional, especially Early Medieval finds, from lovely examples of coinage to the gloriously beautiful Anglo-Saxon Aestel recovered in January this year.
The landowner has not seen this find as of yet (we did call in four times) so perhaps when we're next in the vicinity, we may succeed in tracking him down.

We are still in the process of trying to establish new permissions for the new season, so hopefully in the next few weeks or so we may have some exciting land to explore.

This year see's the 5th annual dig on one of our farms with new trenches in the field which features one of the earliest Roman buildings for the area.
There are already plans for 2023 with an exploratory trench covering an area where we think there may be a Roman shrine.
​
Lets hope we have blogs for each month covering September 2022 through to April 2023.

On Friday 17th December 2021 we asked one of our landowners if we could revisit a field we last surveyed 22nd August 2019.
The answer was yes so we planned our visit for Sunday 19th December 2021.

We recovered 69 Roman coins and over 4 kilo's of Roman pottery including tegulae and a piece of imbrex.
Thoughts are that there are at least 2 Roman buildings there.

After the Christmas and New Year celebrations (very low-key) and a spell of dry-ish weather, we made a visit to the number 2 field we had targetted.
On arrival (Sunday 16th January 2022) we were confronted with a field full of knee-length crop.
Our hearts sank a little, well a lot really so we thought we could see if we could rescue the situation somehow.
We managed to find a few areas where the crop hadn't grown too well so the opportunity to have a small reccy was taken.
The plan was to spend about an hour or so in this field then head over to the field where we had recovered the Roman coins and pottery in December.

I got a call on the radio from Robin that he had found something interesting so I walked over to have a look at this "interesting" find.
It was a piece of gold jewellry and I instantly thought that it looked Anglo-Saxon with a zoomorphic feature.
After taking a picture and uploading to a social media site it was confirmed that it was indeed Anglo-Saxon and was in fact an Aestel.
These were used to point out caligraphy in ancient manuscipts and this piece is dated to c. AD 850 - AD 999 so used during the reign of King Alfred.
Apparently, it was Alfred that had these commissioned and sent out with some of the newly translated religious texts from Latin to Anglo-Saxon.
The only other find of note was a Roman trumpet brooch which still had most of its pin intact.

With the searchable patches covered, we returned to field number 1 where more Roman coinage was unearthed..... and more pottery.