The day had arrived to visit a brand new permission codenamed AELWB. 
Of course we were full of anticipation as this looked to be a superb medieval site with a lot of potential.

We arrived at 7:20am after I'd had a great night's sleep (NOT!) as I only got out of Manchester at 11:30pm the night before due to the horrendous roadworks in the city centre. Managed to get home at 12:10am for a 03:45 get up!
The field (58 acres) looked to be quite level as the farmer had said it was "worked" but not drilled. On the 'phone he did say it would be drilled very soon. It was in fact drilled with winter wheat and we thought "Yes!". 
Within five minutes of being on the field we thought "No!"..... the soil was of a heavy clay type which did a very good job of sticking to our boots!
It was impossible to survey the field in such a condition.
With that it was a trip to the farmhouse to see if there were any other fields that may not be as "claggy" as our survey site.
We met the farmer (and his 3 labs) and he said that there was a field still in stubble that we could have a look at. With that, he drew a map on the rear of our map (as it wasn't big enough!) to indicate where the field was.

We got there to find a small (5 acre) stubble field.
A quick walk on it soon assured us that we could carry on as normal. The only problem was is that we'd never researched this bit, so we were going in 'blind'.
No worries though, the first signal after 60 seconds produced a medieval spur rowel and three medieval pottery sherds.
Sure enough, lots of C13th and C14th pottery were scattered about on the field surface. 
Over 90 pieces of lead were recovered as well as over 70 pottery fragments which included several jug handles. Some of the pottery appeared to be quite early medieval or even Roman. Other non-metallic items were oyster and cockle shells, polished pebbles and worked flints.

Some superb examples of C14th buckles (some with their tongue's still in place) were recovered including a rare sword buckle, a rare stirrup mount including two strapends still attached to it!
Six medieval skillet legs and several skillet rim parts were found along with a small hexagonal medieval brooch, a small cast bell fragment, a casket key, a couple spindle whorls, a Roman sestertius, lead tokens, several strapend fragments, a couple of C3rd Roman coins and five hammered coins, one of which looks to be some form of Hiberno-Norse or Viking type coin. The jury is out at the moment on this one as an expert in the field of this coinage is looking into it. 
Two mis-cast buckles and evidence of metalworking were found on this site. As usual, there were some unidentified artefacts that were recovered which need further investigation. One being a strange lead dome shaped artefact that looks like a replica of the dome of the cathedral at Florence.
It could also be a  sword pommel casting form?

We re-visited the original field and found that it was now walkable. However, nothing much was recovered apart from the sestertius and a cut half hammered penny of Henry II.

We called back at the farm for a re-cap and the farmer told us about another field that was in stubble about 5 miles away. He said we could check that out if we wanted next week.
​
For the technically minded; all three machines were set up as follows: GMP, Tracking and small coils.
No tweaks were used in the making of this survey :D

Images of the days recoveries can be seen here.

Another fine day weather-wise as we headed south to a permission known as LPF to survey a field we'd never been in before.
 
We arrived at the field that was allegedly rolled and seeded but appeared to us as “cultivated” and a little rough around the edges, so to speak.
Anyway, we pressed on and a Victorian brooch surfaced with a small Roman brooch following within seconds of the first brooch!
It appears to be a first century Dolphin type mixed with a bit of “Langton Down” thrown in.

Two pieces of Roman pottery were recovered from the field surface nearby so it looked promising.
I'm afraid it went a little downhill from there as only a few more pieces of pottery and a couple of artefacts came to light.
It seemed strange to us that very little lead and such a small amount of finds were there?
It didn't really matter as, just as we were pondering the find status of the 14 acre field, a huge (and I mean huge) tractor pulled into the field and commenced a rolling operation.
That put paid to that survey so we decided to move to another area.

On the way there we called in at the landowner's house to say "Hi" and he told us that the field WAS seeded and that they roll it AFTERWARDS !
Jeeps, that's the first I'd heard of that happening, but there again, I'm not a farmer!

However, we arrived at another area that we haven't surveyed before and split to cover as much as we could in different parts of the landscape.
We kept each other updated using the two-way radios.
A few Roman grots and small amounts of pottery were found.
Again, very quiet considering the history there.
As there was so much land that we hadn't surveyed before we decided to try another area.

Jeeps! Our mate with the huge red tractor had beat us to the spot!
Luckily there was plenty of space for the four of us!

Some nice Roman, medieval and 16th century pottery along with a mix of artefacts and coins were eventually recovered.
A medieval dagger chape, dress hook, strap ends, buckles, a pot mend and a Venetian Soldino dating to c.1382 and a small amount of Roman items were found.
A nice Charles II maundy twopence dated 1679 was also recovered.

We aren't too sure where we'll be this coming weekend as I've a Gary Numan concert to go to on Saturday night in Manchester!
Early Sunday morning may be a little ambitious.

​After a shaky start to the new season we are finally getting back on track with the quality of recoveries.

Due to the reluctance to retrace our steps on stubble, as we have already covered the ground when newly seeded, we have hit a bit of a lull.
However, our staple sites are now being re-drilled on an increasing scale so we should be up-to-speed very soon with photo's and stories of our surveys!

Our site today (codenamed MC; 560 acres) is one that we have visited quite a few times over the last two years, 9th March 2014 was the date of the first visit to be precise! 

Rob & I arrived to find that the field we were going to survey (84 acres) was drilled with winter wheat and as smooth as silk.
Within minutes of starting, pieces of bronze partifacts began to show.
One hundred feet in and a lovely Colchester style Roman fibula was recovered from the field surface.
On the return pass a super Roman umbonate brooch was recovered, also from the field surface!
We decided to check out other parts of the field we'd never surveyed. As expected, nothing was found so we then decided to move to a field nearby that was still in stubble.
We surveyed an area that we had marked with GPS as a likely votive site but nothing came to light showing that the area was already well searched on the last visit. This also showed that there was little or no compression of the soil over time.

We reverted back to the initial 84 acre survey field and continued with a tight grid pattern covering a selected area that we had identified as a possible settlement site.
23 Roman coins, 4 Roman fibula, a Celtic toggle fastener, fibula parts, a cut-half hammered penny of Henry III and several pieces of Roman pottery were recovered on the day.

One of the brooches recovered was one we had never encountered before, so we're checking various resources to ID it. Again, this was on the field surface!

With the light fading we decided to call in at the farmhouse and say goodbye.

The day didn't end there, we were on the way home when I received an email from home saying that a landowner had 'phoned and that we were more than welcome to survey his land when the OSR and winter wheat were harvested  next year! Something to look forward to I say!
It had only took 8 weeks for him to contact me! LOL! :D

​For images of the days recoveries please click HERE.