A lot has been written about permissions and how to obtain them.
This story is about how coincidental certain aspects the 'permission game' can be.

A lot of coincidences have occurred over the last four years.
One of the most unusual ones was when we were on a cruise and met three farmers who had a considerable amount of land between them. They all said I could survey whenever I liked. This may sound great, but in fact goes against our ethos of 'research first'. 

In the following article you will see that all the farms are coded so that we know which is which and can therefore account for what was found, as well as when and where.
The codes are made up from a combination of information regarding the landowner and farm combined (no pun intended). The major exceptions are for 'TS1', 'TS2' & 'TS3'. These, believe it or not, stand for 'Toy Soldier 1, 2 & 3' and are completely different permissions from each other. The codes below are hyperlinked so that it will take you straight to that particular farm and the finds that were recovered there.
Currently, we have 63 albums on Flickr as can be seen here.

Our first permission, coded as 'WH', was the first in a particular corner of the UK in which permission was granted. WH was farmed by a tenant farmer but the landowner was quite happy for us to survey there.
On every visit I politely waved at the farmer next door as he was busy ploughing, rolling and seeding his lovely fields. I thought It prudent to be polite as I may need to ask him for permission to survey there too.
He kindly reciprocated the 'gesture'..... or at least thats what I thought he was doing.
After quite a few visits I engaged the landowner in conversation whilst showing him what we'd found over a cup of tea. The moment seemed just right to ask him if the tenant farmer from next door would be approachable to the idea of surveying his land?
Imagine my horror when he replied "he's not the tenant, it's another farmer that lives a few miles away". I thought "Jeeps..all that waving for nothing!".
Anyway, I noted the tenant farmers name and realised it was the same farmer that actually owned land at 'TS1' where I'd researched but hadn't approached the landowner as of yet.
I rang the landowner at TS1 and explained that I was the guy surveying the land at WH. He said "no problem, have a look". Result!
TS1 resulted in some great Roman and Celtic finds with a few hammered coins too. The finds were recovered right up to a hedgerow with the other side of the hedge belonging to another landowner. Ummmm, there may be more Roman on the other side I thought.
With that, we obtained permission from the landowner at the other side of the hedge with 100 acres in the adjacent field.

We surveyed it without any Roman finds appearing whatsoever!
This is the reason why we don't have a code for this site...yet.
With shaking heads we went to see the landowner to report that we'd found nothing. He just laughed and commented that we must be keen.
I mentioned that we hoped for better luck at our next brand new permission, 'MC' and he said he went to agricultural college with the landowner!!! I couldn't believe it as MC is several miles away and odds were slim that he would have known him.

I rang the landowner at MC and he said that the landowner at the farm without a code I was talking to had called him to say we were "ok" guys. 
As you can see, MC produced several Celtic and Roman items.

Meanwhile, I asked the landowner of TS1 who owned land near to land he owned and that we'd researched. These would be known as 'TS2' & 'TS3' 
as their lands all meet at one point. I asked him about some other land he farmed a few miles away and he didn't own that one. This is the permission known as 'MFS'.

I rang the landowner at MFS and whilst chatting with her she said that she was best friends with he landowners mother-in-law at MC! She was great friends with the mother of the landowner at WH too!

Whilst surveying TS2 we met the tenant farmer and it turns out that he's the brother of the landowner there! He gave us permission to survey his farm at 'BH' which is right next door to WH which is the land we thought he farmed in the first place!!!
So.... perhaps all that waving wasn't wasted after all.

Another fine day and another brand new permission!

Steve, Rob and I arrived at a permission that we thought was unobtainable.
No, not the stuff they were mining for in Avatar!

Background
Ironically, whilst detecting last week on a permission gained in January, a Land Rover pulled up and out jumped the farmer who appeared suprised about us being on the land he was renting. The landowner hadn't told him we were coming!
Anyway, after talking him through who we were and our strategy he was fine. He did say that if it wasn't for our professional approach the landowner would have knocked us back as they weren't too keen on detectorists. I quickly siezed the chance to ask him about his farm as there was evidence of Roman activity there. He said there was no problem.
I asked if we needed to ring him beforehand and he said "no... just turn up"!

New Survey Site
So, we turned up and parked at another permission as it was easier to cut through this farm to reach our intended field.

As usual the Déus' were set at standard GMP with GB set to "Tracking" for Rob and manual for my machine.
Small coils were used as we expected some ferrous contamination and the ground to be heavily mineralised.

The field is forty acres in size and has OSR that was about 3 inches in height. We carefully chose a section (section B) to survey first that we thought may have a settlement in situ. 
Signals were few and far between with bits of lead and just one dupondis being the only Roman item in this section. Some pre-decimal silver emerged and several "hot rocks" were detected showing signs of ancient activity there.

After lunch we then moved to the next section (section A) and straight away we started to find Roman coins. It wasn't long before a lovely Roman disc brooch with yellow and blue enamel was recovered then a Roman decorative belt slider with bright red enamel.
A large ingot of lead was recovered and some unfortunate soul had to lug it around for a while!

We covered less than half the field which is quite fast for us.
There's probably another 25 acres to survey if we don't get distracted by the permission next door. We'll have to have a Skype conflab to discuss the next move.

The permission next door where we parked has three large fields that are now rolled and seeded so we may be tempted to have a look there on our next sorty!

The link to the recoveries on the day can be seen here.

Another windy but lovely day to venture out and explore our fantastic heritage.
We arrived at the main survey area which had been seeded with winter wheat at 7:35am. The rest of the surrounding fields had winter wheat and OSR.

The machines were set up as standard with the Déus' operating in the GMP mode and GB set to "Tracking" with the small coils being the choice of the day.

The SW wind had reached us so the temps were nice and cool.
We had only been surveying for about half an hour when a Land Rover pulled up behind our support vehicle and the driver got out with his two dogs. The youngest dog came running over and was very friendly. The driver is the tenant farmer and wondered how we were getting on. 
I'd phoned him a couple of weeks ago asking about another field that looked like it had potential. He was drilling at the time and the signal was lost as he was saying we couldn't survey it and why. I missed the 'why' bit.
Anyway, I recapped the discussion we'd had and asked what was the reason for the refusal. He said the land is rented and the landowner doesn't like detectorists.

I thanked him again for allowing us to detect the fields we were on today.
He said that if it wasn't for our professionalism we wouldn't be there!

The best part of the meeting was that I asked him about the possibility of surveying land next door to a permission that he farms where we'd found a Viking sword pommel, Saxon coin and several Roman coins and artefacts. He said "no problem... come whenever you like".

Anyway, on to today's survey, we started at a point where we knew where a RB settlement is situated. We know this from the amount of finds we had here in January. The first of many Roman grots were recovered along with other Roman and Celtic artefacts. Lots of pottery also emerged.
We eventually covered the full area that we suspect the settlement covers and then had time to explore further afield. 
We all split up and surveyed areas we hadn't had  chance to search last January. A Saxon strapend came up followed by the Henry VIII coin.


99% of finds came from the top four inches of the field surfaces. The mineralisation was very high due to the site being a settlement so the detection depth will be affected. There is no way around this at this present moment in time. The Déus' tackled this site with ease as there was a huge amount of small ferrous items on top of the mineralisation!

Alas, the sun was setting so we decided to call it a day.

The images of todays finds can be seen here.

Please enjoy    :)

Another glorious day saw Steve, Rob and I venture out onto a permission that we only managed an hour on earlier in September. This was due to all the fields being deeply rough ploughed except for a very small amount around the edge of one field.

This time the conditions were slightly better with all three fields being rolled and seeded. The bottom end of the field above was a little soggy but the rest of it was perfect.

The machines were set up with small coils and the Déus' were set to GMP standard and "Tracking". We used the tried and tested grid system to survey the area.
The first signal was a large Civil War musket ball which was a hint to the amount of musket balls here.
The fields have never been detected and the proof was the large quantity of horse shoes and other large items such a the huge Victorian curtain rings that were spread around the first field. The first field was 6 acres in size with the other two being 9 and 10 acres each.

The field had the largest amount of worked flint I've ever seen in one field. it looks as though the Stone Age/Bronze Age people thought that this site was a great place to live.

We started picking up more artefacts and coins as we moved eastwards across the field. It was when we got to about the central section that the penny of King Stephen appeared. We broke for lunch and then carried on from where we left off.

Several buckles and coins were unearthed along with two more hammered coins looking like Eddie's, a silver cigarette case and more flints! A nice zoomorphic Viking strapend piece came to light.
 We managed to cover the 6 acres of the first field and we had a couple of hours in hand so we did a reccy of the other two fields.
These proved to be very quiet compared to the first field.
We decided to pack in for the day and see the landowner as we'd never even met her yet!!

We knocked at the farm lodge door and a lady came out to greet us. She was really nice and we were getting along just fine until she asked "so... what is it you want?"..... I apologised and said that I thought she was the landowner. "No" she said "You need to go to the Manor House as thats where the landowner lived.
Jeeps.. it was huge! Anyway, after ringing the large bell outside the front door we at long last met the landowner. She was lovely and invited us in for a pot of tea.

We couldn't believe the amount of other landowners she knew! Some of them are already under our permissions and they were miles away!
She said we could come back anytime we liked and looked forward to us re-visiting.

On the way there we checked one of our Roman sites and YEAH!!! ...it was rolled and seeded. We surveyed this site in January this year for the first time and apart from 78 Roman coins there were many artefacts too dating from the Roman, Saxon and medieval periods.

Fingers crossed that the weather is ok for next weekend.

You can see the photo's of the finds recovered on the day by clicking here.

It was a lovely start to the day with superb weather yet again! 
We had a full team with Rob, Steve and I combining forces.

We were going to try a permission the day before on Saturday that I've not been to for 18 months or so but the landowner advised against it as the ground would be quite "claggy". Never mind, another time maybe.

Anyway, we arrived at the Sunday permission with the mist swirling in the valley and the sun trying to break through. In fact, there was enough mist to classify the conditions as foggy LOL!

We finished off the field we surveyed last week using the Déus' and large coils set at standard GMP and GB at "Tracking". Steve used the Gold Maxx Power with the small coil. Apart from some C17th pottery and a nice copper nail there was nothing more to report on.

We then drove to field number 2 which was also rolled and seeded with wheat. This field has a suspected Iron Age settlement on it as we found a couple of Celtic pieces last year when we did a very quick reccy there.

There was a disproportionate amount of shotgun caps here but we persevered and the very first coin to emerge was a denarius of Augustus dating to 11-10 BC! A couple of flints were also recovered.
No other recordable finds came to light here.

We then moved next door to field number 3 where another IA or Romano-British settlment existed. We suspect that this one is slightly later than the one in field 2 as quite a few artefacts and coins dating between the C1st and C4th have been recovered in the past.
This field had OSR in it and had grown quite a bit in the last seven days!

Although the field had only been disked and not ploughed since our last visit earlier this year we still managed to recover the majority of the finds on the day in this field.
The settlement is situated on the rise to the left of the photograph.
Five more Roman coins and a small fibula accounted for the Roman finds with a bonus Celtic mount making an appearance too.

We decided to have a look at a couple of other fields to see what condition they were in for a possible return visit later in the season.
One was still in stubble but the one between a Norman castle, Saxon church and village was newly ploughed, rolled and seeded.
Hopefully we can survey these before next April/May.

The link to the photo-set can be seen here.