Well, here we are, just four months away from the longest day of the year! Christmas (and the shortest day) already seem so long ago.
Today we see a complete change in direction with the PAST team travelling north on the M6 to Cumbria AND surveying pasture in place of our usual arable sites.

This is a new permission of six hundred acres with a mix of mainly pasture with a small amount of arable. Some of the present pasture has been used as arable in the past.
The story behind this acqusition came about by the action of one of the team members stopping the traffic whilst an operational procedure was taking place in the roadway. At the head of the traffic queue was a gentleman who asked what the hold up was, of which was explained courteously telling him that 'Superfast Broadband' was on its way. He replied that he wasn't very computer savvy and got his secretary to do "all that sort of stuff". When asked what sort of business he had he simply replied that he had an estate "up the road". The opportunity to ask about detecting was too hard to resist and the answer was "come whenever you like..... as long as I get half" and with that, he passed on his business card.

We arrived at the predetermined time of 9am to meet with the landowner at the Estate Office. We were very kindly given an A3 map of the estate which took in a few hamlets and areas we didn't anticipate at all.
What a great and 'down-to-earth' guy he was! He said "go wherever you like" and pointed out that some of the farms are tenanted but not to worry. He also reminded us about the "going halves" bit of the agreement with a wry smile.

We'd already decided on the first area to survey which happened to be a field quite close to the hamlet and the landowners home.
We parked on the field to the sound of chaffinches and greenfinch singing their Spring ditties and the territorial call of the green woodpecker which used to be known as the "Yaffle" in medieval times. 

The Déus' were set up as follows; Déus #1 in GMP, 18khz, GB in Tracking and Déus #2; GMP, 18khz, Full tones, Disc at 1, Reactivity at 2, GB in Tracking. Both machines were fitted with the 13" x 11" coils.

The overall ground conditions consisted of shallow soil over bedrock or stones with very little ferrous contamination hence my setting of disc at 1 and reactivity at 1 & 2. The reduction in reactivity should increase the depth capability slightly and this was the case with some recoveries coming in at twelve inches where the soil cover was deeper. 
The first signal of the day resulted in a nice William III shilling dated 1698 being recovered at three inches.
The second signal was again at three inches and was a huge piece of lead fashioned in the shape of a sphere and weighing in at 611g!!! Several buckles and Georgian coins were recovered during the day. Towards the end of the day as the sun began to set a lovely George III half crown dated 1817 was recovered at four inches as this was the soil depth over the bedrock and stone layer.

Later on in the day we bumped into the landowner and he said "oh.. I forgot to tell you that there are some earthworks next to one of the farms and that it was a settlement of some description". Jeeps! It looks as though we'll have to take a look at that one on our next visit.... whenever that may be!!

In all not a bad day with the weather being kind and lovely views with the distant snow capped mountains showing over the valley tops.

Images of the days finds can be seen here.

Well, after some fine Michelin starred dining on Valentines day, it was time to work it off on one of our favourite permissions.

So, it was off to "MC", as this permission is code named, and with high anticipation of a field we have eagerly awaited to survey. On our last visit we only managed the field perimeter, this alone took all day!

On the way there a barn owl appeared before us in a suicidal manouevre whilst we were doing 70mph on the motorway. We hoped that this may have been a good omen as we've now seen four barn owls on previous occaisions with good results!

It was another quite misty/foggy start upon arrival and the conditions persisted until 10am. The weather was fairly good though with no wind and relatively warm at +6C. 
This did however change after lunch with a biting SE wind prompting us to don another layer and go for thicker gloves!

The machines were set as last week but this time we elected for the 13" x 11" coils over the standard 9". At first we thought this may have been an incorrect descision as the small ferrous signal count was "off-the-clock" with each swing registering a huge amount of iron targets. The large coils however handled the contamination with ease even though the sound coming through the headset sounded like a Gatling Gun going off!

The first signal of the day resulted in a worn C4th bronze Roman unit at 3" depth. The second signal, in contrast, was something more special, a small Saxon silver sceat, again this was only 3" under the surface too.
A large amount of lead was recovered amongst the ferrous items and, as expected, even more super artefacts and coins also made an appearance.
A cut quarter and other hammered coinage, along with more Roman coins, a Roman fibula, and a fibula fastening loop came from the top five inches of the field surface.

The next artefact was very special indeed, a late Saxon buckle with its highly decorated strapend plate attached with gold guilding still partly adorning its flanks.

A lovely silvered C13th buckle was recovered from beneath a ferrous item, both recognised accordingly by the Déus.
At least 13 shards of medieval pottery was recovered as well as three worked pieces of flint.
Pewter spoon fragments and rim-part of a C18th cattle bell with various medieval belt mounts, buttons and three lead pot mends were also recovered.

A superb trio of silver pre-decimal coins emerged in order of financial heirarchy, a sixpence, a florin and a half crown. Another George VI sixpence came up nearby.

In all, six Roman coins, six hammered coins, two Roman fibula fragments, five medieval buckles and parts, several lead weights and some nice dating fabric was recovered.

The images from the day for all the artefacts and coins can be seen here.

The journey to our newest permission began with a foggy start. In fact it was still foggy when we arrived three hours later!

We collected the landowners son from a farm nearby with his new machine, a Viking V5 detector. He was also brandishing a brand new finds bag and lots of excitement.

A short drive later we were pulling onto a cultivated field.
We found several Devil's Toenails whilst walking over to our start point.
Within minutes of our quest to locate a Roman site we were recovering several pieces of Roman pottery. So much so that we thought that we were in for a very good day indeed.

The machines were set up as previously using the 9 inch coils.
We thought it strange as it took an almost an hour to find our first non-ferrous item... a Roman coin. The next item was part of a silvered Roman brooch. In all, only 6 Roman coins were recovered!

Rob radioed me to say we had company. I looked around to see two other detectorists walking along the edge of the field then make their way over to us. They asked us if we had permission. After we had satisfied their anxiety they became more relaxed and started to describe what was in the area.
This information qualified our research as they confirmed what we already assumed for the area perfectly.

The crunch came when they told us that they'd battered the area for over 20 years and that someone before them used to search it too.
No wonder we didn't find many non-ferrous items!
They passionately showed us pictures on their 'phone of some magnificent finds they had recovered over the years. One was of a BA gold hoard recovered nearby.

After lunch we decided that we'd have a reccy looking at the landowners fields in a nearby village. One of the fields that we are keen to survey is still in a rough ploughed state so we carried on with our reccy. We ended up a couple of miles away on a mixture of pasture and crop. We split and did a random widespread survey whilst in radio contact. 
Whilst the landowners son and I searched the pasture, Rob and Steve were busy checking out a small coppice. They'd come across a huge bottle dump with bottles dating from the mid C19th to the 1930's.

The best part of the day was still to come.... the landowners wife parked by the support vehicle to collect her son. She very kindly invited us back to the farm for tea and cake. We couldn't get changed fast enough!!!

We were greeted by the landowners dogs eagerly wagging their tails and probably hoping for a piece of cake. Their son was now busy cleaning the pottery and finds in the utility room sink whilst we were sat in a lovely warm kitchen with tea and fruit cake.... and two expectant dogs.

Even better was to come, the landowner himself arrived of whom we'd never met. He told us of the plans for the fields we were interested in, so, we have a busy few months ahead. We spent over an hour chatting about everything from archaeology, to holidays in Barbados and Italy!

Their son laid out all the pottery and Devil's Toenails neatly on the arger which helped them dry very quickly!

We left with such a great feeling and thinking how good can this get!?

We're certainly looking forward to returning and perhaps finding some land that hasn't had quite as much attention as the first field we were in.

The recoveries for the day can be seen here.