This is the beginning of our new season and our first venture out was to a brand-new permission.
The field we researched wasn't ready as it still has Spring Barley growing in it so we elected to go with the landowner’s choice of a field that had peas growing there. This is a strategy that we don't normally follow.
The weather was quite cool considering the temps were reaching 30C+ elsewhere. The ground was very hard in parts but there was fairly good surface visibility and the cropped pea foliage didn't give us a problem.
Due to the lack of finds, both metallic and non-metallic, we decided to use our "Zebra" method which would speed up the process and give us a quick and very accurate overview of the field.
Only 2 Roman coins were recovered, one; a mid-third century sestertius and the other; a nummus of Constantine I dating to 313 AD.
Not one sherd of Medieval or Roman pottery was seen even though there is a Saxon village nearby and a very large presence of Iron Age and Roman activity in the area.
At lunchtime we made the decision to cut it short and use the available time to meet up with the tenant farmer and try and get his mobile number.
We arrived at the farmhouse which was a very grand Georgian design and he came out to meet us.
He was a little bewildered at first as he didn't know who we were, even after sending 2 emails saying we were coming to survey.
I also tried ringing 5-times.
Once he saw that we'd got permission from the landowner he was very amiable and extremely pleasant.
I said the biggest problem we have is finding out which land belongs to who to which he replied "You'll need to know that as we farm 2,000-acres".
He added that the next opportunity would be when the Spring Barley is harvested next month.
With that, he gave us his mobile number and we said we look forward to coming back next month.
On the way home we took a slight detour to call in to a landowner we'd written to recently. We couldn't find a contact number anywhere.
I called a company with the same surname in the same village and asked if they had a number for him. They replied "Good luck with that one, he's a law unto himself".
We pulled up outside a very large detached bungalow which had all the curtains shut. We ventured around the rear of the property to find a Land Rover there and all the curtains closed there too.
I said "does anyone live here?" but Rob gave the door a knock and after a couple of minutes the door opened.
It was the elusive guy we were after and it was almost like the scene from the Detectorists TV series when Lance and Andy knocked on the door of the farmer with the bomb in his field!
We chatted for well over 5-minutes and said we'd be in the area in two-weeks' time. Not bad considering he was making lunch!
He gave us his landline number and said he'd come to the field with us when we returned so as to check that the field we were after was his.
There's crop in there that's ready to harvest soon.
So, we saw 2 deer, found 2 Roman coins, found out that we may have access to two-thousand acres and secured 2 'phone numbers. I'm sure there's a theme here!
The field we researched wasn't ready as it still has Spring Barley growing in it so we elected to go with the landowner’s choice of a field that had peas growing there. This is a strategy that we don't normally follow.
The weather was quite cool considering the temps were reaching 30C+ elsewhere. The ground was very hard in parts but there was fairly good surface visibility and the cropped pea foliage didn't give us a problem.
Due to the lack of finds, both metallic and non-metallic, we decided to use our "Zebra" method which would speed up the process and give us a quick and very accurate overview of the field.
Only 2 Roman coins were recovered, one; a mid-third century sestertius and the other; a nummus of Constantine I dating to 313 AD.
Not one sherd of Medieval or Roman pottery was seen even though there is a Saxon village nearby and a very large presence of Iron Age and Roman activity in the area.
At lunchtime we made the decision to cut it short and use the available time to meet up with the tenant farmer and try and get his mobile number.
We arrived at the farmhouse which was a very grand Georgian design and he came out to meet us.
He was a little bewildered at first as he didn't know who we were, even after sending 2 emails saying we were coming to survey.
I also tried ringing 5-times.
Once he saw that we'd got permission from the landowner he was very amiable and extremely pleasant.
I said the biggest problem we have is finding out which land belongs to who to which he replied "You'll need to know that as we farm 2,000-acres".
He added that the next opportunity would be when the Spring Barley is harvested next month.
With that, he gave us his mobile number and we said we look forward to coming back next month.
On the way home we took a slight detour to call in to a landowner we'd written to recently. We couldn't find a contact number anywhere.
I called a company with the same surname in the same village and asked if they had a number for him. They replied "Good luck with that one, he's a law unto himself".
We pulled up outside a very large detached bungalow which had all the curtains shut. We ventured around the rear of the property to find a Land Rover there and all the curtains closed there too.
I said "does anyone live here?" but Rob gave the door a knock and after a couple of minutes the door opened.
It was the elusive guy we were after and it was almost like the scene from the Detectorists TV series when Lance and Andy knocked on the door of the farmer with the bomb in his field!
We chatted for well over 5-minutes and said we'd be in the area in two-weeks' time. Not bad considering he was making lunch!
He gave us his landline number and said he'd come to the field with us when we returned so as to check that the field we were after was his.
There's crop in there that's ready to harvest soon.
So, we saw 2 deer, found 2 Roman coins, found out that we may have access to two-thousand acres and secured 2 'phone numbers. I'm sure there's a theme here!
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