Despite all sorts of weather warnings, we still decided to venture out onto this brand new permission with wheat stubble.
The research showed that there may be evidence of Roman or Medieval activity.

The weather was okay when we arrived at 11am.
The stubble was very soft and the soil was fantastic, being quite sandy.
What a change it was not to have spades, wellingtons and pin-pointers covered in sticky mud!
Only 4 Roman coins were recovered with only 2 of them identifiable.
We couldn't see any pottery as we only had about 5% visibility of the field surface.

Our challenge to identify who may have inhabited the field was partly solved and looks to have been a small Roman settlement with perhaps just one dwelling that was there for a short period of time.
Another survey when the field is drilled with wheat/barley may provide further evidence to either support this theory or otherwise.
We decided to ask the landowner if we could have a look at another field about 2 miles away so I sent him a quick text whilst he was out on a shoot.
The answer came back within 2 minutes and it was "Fine, go ahead".

This field was right next to a rebuilt Victorian church on top of a C12th building and the soil was just like the first field, lovely!
The first signal was a corroded Roman coin quickly followed by an Early Medieval buckle dating to C11th and was a "Beast Biting the Bar" type.
Other Medieval artefacts were recovered along with Medieval pottery.
Quite a few modern items were also found as there was quite a lot of Victorian night soil tippings evident.

​HD images of the finds can be seen here.

Where did last year go?!

Here we were at a brand new permission that held the promise that there may be Roman evidence lurking just inches below the surface.

It was just coming light as we donned the gear and machinery.
On entering the field we saw that is was a very sandy mix and a very welcome situation compared to last week when we were plagued with the sticky mud! This type of soil is beautiful to dig as some of you may know.

After a couple of minutes a vehicle pulled up and a chap got out and shouted over "excuse me" so I went over to introduce myself.
He asked if we had permission to be on the field to which I said yes.
He then said "who did we ask?" so I informed him and he said that the lady in question should have refused as the field was rented out to another farmer, Mr X.
He added "Mr X wouldn't like the fact that you're digging up his crop" to which I replied that we have several landowners that thoroughly trust us and are happy that there is minimal damage to crops.
He also asked if we'd spoken to Mr X and I said no, he repeated the he wouldn't be happy and that he pays a lot of money to rent the field.
He drove off and we decided to continue but with a dark cloud hanging over us.

We managed to find two Roman trumpet brooches and nothing more so Rob launched his new toy to film the field from some great angles. The hexacopter climbed to a height of 70 metres.
Funnily enough, the damage to the crops from rabbits and pigeons was quite bad.

We had a bite to eat at noon and decided to call it a day and call in and see Mrs X that gave us permission. Unfortunately she was out so I rang her mobile and she said she was sorry for the misunderstanding. We had a laugh about it and I said I would ring her again regarding other fields they have.

Our next port of call was a stalwart permission that has produced some brilliant finds. Unfortunately the field was roughly ploughed so out-of-bounds. Plan C was called for so a quick 'WhatsApp' message to another landowner and we were on our way to a Roman field we hadn't been to since September 2017.

The field had been seeded with Winter Wheat and was quite short and the soil quite dry, so no claggy wellingtons!
After lots of buttons we managed to recover three denarii and a few grots.
The denarii appear to be Diva Faustina I with the other two being Vespasian and possibly Vitellius, Vespasian's' predecessor.
A coin we hadn't found before was a silver schilling dating to 1790.

Once again, Robs hexacopter took to the air to capture some shots that will be great to see when uploaded to the video channel.
This time, the drone maintained a height of 120 metres so that footage will be interesting too.

​HD images of the finds recovered at both sites can be seen here and here.

The last survey of 2018 saw us return to a long-standing Roman favourite that has produced some wonderful coins and artefacts during 20 visits since March 2014.

The first field we had a look at was drilled with wheat and revealed a couple of fragments of Roman pottery and a few coins.
The field next to did have potatoes in it but it was too rough to search there so we looked at another field nearby.

This produced a very small hammered and one piece of Medieval pottery.
This was the opportunity that Rob was looking for to try out his new toy; a hexacopter drone fitted with a 4K camera!
Footage from this inaugural flight appears to be quite awesome considering it was carried out in a 25mph breeze! The footage can be seen here.

The last field we looked at was drilled with OSR but the crop had failed so it was re-drilled with wheat. This field has a Roman road running through it with a Romano-British settlement nearby. The search area had several fragments of Roman building material and pottery. As expected, a number of Roman coins and artefacts were recovered.

One artefact that was recovered stood out as being a rare fragment of a Roman glass bangle. This was the highlight of the day and one of the rarest artefacts we have ever recovered amongst some memorable finds over the past 8 years.

HD images of the finds can be seen here.