We headed up to Scotland via Edinburgh to a site that may have been an Early Medieval monastic settlement.
Unfortunately, we didn't find any evidence outside the existing farm buildings of any Early Medieval artefacts, or  indeed, any artefacts of note.

There are however some lovely crop marks that now look to be prehistoric.
We're sure that a full excavation will reveal its secrets.

On a brighter note, the chap we are working with (Dr James) had other sites that require investigation.
One of these jumped out as a great contender with super crop marks and further supporting evidence.

We set off for the new destination and arrived 35 minutes later at a church just above the field of interest.
The church itself 'looks' quite modern but actually dates back to at least the C11th.
We tracked down the landowner and had a very informative chat with him.
He agreed to an initial survey and gave us some great intel about the field and the general area.
He also mentioned that other detectorists had been on the field and found some items there.
One of these items was a gold artefact he said dated to the Celtic period so we'll look into that to verify its date and identification.

There is also evidence that the Vikings were here too!

​We'll have a report on this site after we visit it in three weeks time after the crop has been harvested.

The day began with a mix of cloud then blue sky, and hot sunshine.

The 'Big Yellow Trowel' arrived at 8am on Monday and began cutting the first of three trenches over what we thought might be a Roman shrine.

The first (and largest trench) started to reveal archaeology on the first cut!
The trench is roughly the shape of the capital letter 'F' and has what looks like robbed-out wall's, two hearth's, a roundhouse, pits, pottery, ditches with burnt items and lots of metal artefacts. These include 38 coins from the spoil heap, what may be at least three small coin hoards and a crossbow style brooch.

​The other two trenches are exploratory cuts, one has no apparent features at present, and the other has two pits/ditches, the brooch was recovered from the latter trench in one of the pits. 
This suggests that this trench is perhaps C3rd to C4th in date too.

The first trench cuts through an area where we recovered several Roman coins and lovely fragments of small base sherds.
it was our belief that small amounts of coinage was buried within the small pots as votive offerings.
Judging by the 30+ coins from one small area on the spoil heap, and lots of signals in the trench, it looks like there may be some of these hoards still in situ.
​Each flag in the image below represents at least one coin or multiples of coins!

This image shows the Roman crossbow fibula in situ.

Here is one of the coins sitting on the trench floor surface.

Some of the eager volunteers being instructed on which parts of the trench to start cleaning back.

We're back on-site this coming Saturday and Sunday so hopefully there'll be some nice updates to come......

Today we had a trip in another direction to a county we've neglected for a while now.
This was a recce to suss where the access points are for the fields we need to survey later this year after harvest.

We arrived at the end of the lane that leads to all the fields we need to survey and within minutes the owner of the nearby stunning property arrived to ask who we were. When I say this property is stunning, I mean stunning.
He very kindly advised us where we could park.

We donned some waterproofs as it was quite wet.
A circuit around field didn't reveal too much about the Roman activity there.
The size of the Roman fort there is breath-taking as is the scenery.
We also looked at the field next to it that holds three Roman marching camps.
Oddly enough, we came across a scatter of fish scales in one of the tractor tracks. I commented that it was either an Osprey or Otter, both species were discounted as it was too far from a water source and Ospreys don't habit this area.
WRONG! We stopped at a strategic position to view the area, and low and behold, TWO Ospreys were sat in a tree by the waters edge!
Other birds encountered were; Red Kite, Buzzard, Sedge Warbler, Reed Bunting, Whitethroat, Chiff Chaff and Spotted Flycatcher to name a few.

There is much to be done to explore the Roman fort area as well as the marching camps as they all cover a huge area, all under crop at the moment.

Watch this space in August/September this year.

Here we are in July 2024 and still waiting for Spring to happen!
It's been a very cold, windy and wet Spring indeed with not many outings looking for wildlife in the UK which is my other passion.

Anyway, on the detecting front, there's not much activity now that the crops are advancing.
However, we are now looking to the new 2024/2025 season that is now upon us.
One of the things we've decided is that quite a few of our sites are now proving more difficult in the retrieval of artefacts for recording.
So, with that in mind, we have created a list of potential new sites around the UK.

Ironically, we obtained permission in 2020 for a site that is within a 2000-acre estate but because of Covid-19 and the very wet winters/springs we didn't follow it up.
Fast forward to July 2024, and after a quick email to the landowner and a quick reply back we were invited to carry out a survey after harvest this year!
We are so looking forward to this as there is promise of Roman history there as well as Medieval too.

We have also been invited to an archaeological dig at a Roman fort which is happening as I write this.

​Hopefully there will be updates on the dig as well as news on any other permissions we are lucky to obtain.

We had permission to search a large field (69-acres) that the farmer said was "worked" and was "quite flat".
However, when we got there, it didn't look that flat but we gave it a couple of runs. It was too rough to walk on and besides, we were losing a lot of depth due to the deep furrows.

We decided to contact another farmer a few miles away as we knew he had a 50-acre field that was flat a couple of weeks ago.
We got there and it was very flat with only the very small ridges showing where the drill had been in contact with the soil.

It wasn't long before the first of 69 Roman coins began to show.
We could see the stone remains of Roman buildings ahead of us.
On the return run up the field, a large tractor pulled up on the main road so I went over to the driver to ask him if he needed to enter the field as our cars were in the gate opening (not much room to park).
He said yes, he was going to roll the field. I said that I thought it already been rolled as it was so flat!

We carried on as he rolled around us.
The ground was a detectorists heaven, you couldn't get it much flatter.
We were sure that the extra compression of the soil gave up more signals.
As you may know, small Roman coins only give a small signal and are usually never more than about 4 inches deep on arable land.

A Roman trumpet brooch, an unknown brooch and the top section of a Composite Plate brooch came up. A rare lead Roman tessera was an unusual find. These were used as tokens/tickets for admission to theatres, games, baths and even brothels. A nice Roman finger ring and a pair of tweezers were recovered.
One of the coins is a denarius of Julia Domna dated to AD 198 - 202 and the others were all C3rd to C4th copper alloy coins, one being an As of Vespasian AD 69 - 79 and the rest a mix of nummi from 'normal' sized coins (approx 18mm Ø) to tiny minims that were only 7mm Ø.

27 pottery fragments were collected with only one sherd positively identified as Medieval (c.1350 AD), the rest being Roman roof tile, rim sherds and a few pieces of possible tesserae.

HD images of all the finds can be seen here.

Our fifth visit this season to the 24-acre field resulted in more hammered coinage covering a wide date-range being recovered.
Patience is the word for this field as the artefacts are quite widespread with hammered coinage averaging about two coins per acre.
There have been 48 hammered coins recovered overall, dating from the C12th through to to Charles I.

We were going to video this visit but it was far too windy, so we'll perhaps try it next time out.

At least there is no green waste here, also the soil is great to dig as it is has a mix of sand in its makeup making it crumbly. It was a surprise to see the surface cracking due to the dry conditions!

The links to the images of the artefacts from the three visits are: 9th March, 16th March and 24th March.

This is our second visit this season to the 24-acre field drilled with first wheat.
The first visit was cut short but we still managed to recover a couple of hammered coins and medieval artefacts.
One of the coins was a continental penny of Gui de Dampierre AD 1280 - 1305 and the other was a sixpence of Elizabeth I dated 1594 and minted at the Tower of London.
Images of these finds can be seen here.

The second visit consisted of the the full team taking part and had a bit of a slow start yet there were quite a few silver coins recovered, three being hammered.
​After the lunch break we decided to persevere and we were glad we did as more medieval artefacts emerged and a total eleven hammered coins were found with four silver milled coins.
There were two large lead trade weights, one weighing a pound and the other weighing one quarter of a pound.
In fact, quite a few lead artefacts were recovered with four bag seals, a token and a lead pot mend with a piece of the pot still intact.
A nice pin that may be Saxon or Medieval came up too but is in the process of cleaning as this article is being written.

We look forward to returning to this field soon. At 24-acres we estimate that there is another two days worth of searching to complete it.
Meanwhile, there are some other interesting fields at the farm we want to survey after this one that may be interesting. We know that one of them has a possible Roman shrine in it, as well as a DMV. 

​High definition images can be seen here.

Well, this seems to be the 'norm' now, another very wet start to the season.
One of our landowners noted that the usual annual rainfall was 24" per year. Last year the annual total was 62" and most of that fell between July and December 2023.

Our last outing was 14th January 2024 and there is a possibility that we may venture out this coming weekend.
The target field has quite a sandy loam mixture and quite soft when damp.
Some of the fields at this farm are probably out-of-bounds according to the landowner until April where they may have dried out slightly.
One of these fields is where we think there could be a possible Roman shrine.

We have a few projects and activities in the pipeline this year, so we'll let you know the outcome of those as we encounter them.
Some of these include a farm in Lancashire where there are possible Roman buildings; a Roman fort, a possible Anglo-Saxon religious site in Scotland, our annual dig looking for two Roman shrines, a couple of visits to ongoing archaeological digs and more!

We may visit to the BM soon to look at their Roman exhibition; 'Legion, life in the Roman army' which runs to the 23rd June 2024.
Whilst there, we will be handing over a treasure case item that has been ongoing for over two years.

Hopefully there will be a report on our outing this weekend, if the weather behaves!

Todays dig was going to target an area that we think may hold a Roman shrine.
This assumption is due to fact that mainly Roman bronze coinage and pottery sherds from small urns have been recovered here.

We got to the field and it was underwater in parts and very, very soggy!
This is the first time at this farm since 2015 that we have not been able to carry out a survey due to wet conditions.
Thankfully, we had a sort of backup plan, and that was to survey the field next door to it.

This field is pasture and only about 3.5 acres in size so should be covered quite easily in the time we had for the day,
Details had come to light recently that this field had been excavated by an amateur team in the 1950's and they had found remains that may have been an altar and grave headstones with several Roman coins there.

Within the first few minutes the first Roman coin emerged, quickly followed by more. In all, 42 Roman coins were recovered, mainly dating to the C4th but covering the following Reece periods; 9, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 & 19.
​The date range is AD 180 to AD 364.
A majority of the coins are in excellent condition and some look like they were uncirculated. 
No other Roman artefacts were recovered which mirrors our other shrine site as only coinage (and nice sherds of small Roman vessels) were found there too.

You can view the images of the finds from this dig here.

As mentioned in a previous post, our new 2023/2024 season has started off pretty slowly with the inclement weather and team availability.
2023 on the whole was quite a good year for Anglo-Saxon finds especially coinage.

In December last year we visited a site that has a small Roman villa with lots of tesserae recovered (91 pieces @ 1.4kg) and a small amount of Roman coinage and fibula fragments. The images can be seen here.

January 7th saw us in a field that has produced mainly Medieval artefacts with 1.4kg of C13th - C14th pottery as well as buckle fragments and four hammered coins.
Over 50 musket balls were recovered of various sizes.
Also, several pieces of worked flint were taken from the surface showing that the area has been used for over three thousand years.
​The images for these finds can be seen here. 

​We are hoping to look at another field on the farm which is quite large but holds what we think is a Roman shrine.
Recent information shows that an area close to here has produced Roman alter stones and coinage during an archaeological dig.

Fingers crossed that we will have a decent report for our next post!