On Friday 17th December 2021 we asked one of our landowners if we could revisit a field we last surveyed 22nd August 2019.
The answer was yes so we planned our visit for Sunday 19th December 2021.

We recovered 69 Roman coins and over 4 kilo's of Roman pottery including tegulae and a piece of imbrex.
Thoughts are that there are at least 2 Roman buildings there.

After the Christmas and New Year celebrations (very low-key) and a spell of dry-ish weather, we made a visit to the number 2 field we had targetted.
On arrival (Sunday 16th January 2022) we were confronted with a field full of knee-length crop.
Our hearts sank a little, well a lot really so we thought we could see if we could rescue the situation somehow.
We managed to find a few areas where the crop hadn't grown too well so the opportunity to have a small reccy was taken.
The plan was to spend about an hour or so in this field then head over to the field where we had recovered the Roman coins and pottery in December.

I got a call on the radio from Robin that he had found something interesting so I walked over to have a look at this "interesting" find.
It was a piece of gold jewellry and I instantly thought that it looked Anglo-Saxon with a zoomorphic feature.
After taking a picture and uploading to a social media site it was confirmed that it was indeed Anglo-Saxon and was in fact an Aestel.
These were used to point out caligraphy in ancient manuscipts and this piece is dated to c. AD 850 - AD 999 so used during the reign of King Alfred.
Apparently, it was Alfred that had these commissioned and sent out with some of the newly translated religious texts from Latin to Anglo-Saxon.
The only other find of note was a Roman trumpet brooch which still had most of its pin intact.

With the searchable patches covered, we returned to field number 1 where more Roman coinage was unearthed..... and more pottery.

We were contacted by one of our landowners and asked if we could locate an earring lost during a shoot on their land.
The earrings were specially commissioned in Hanoi for a high-ranking official visiting there.

Robin (one of our team) very kindly volunteered to visit the farm and search for the item of jewellry of which the owner was quite upset about the loss.

On arrival at the farm, the landowner drove him to the shooting area and dropped him off there.
Within 5 minutes of setting up the machine, Robin successfully located the earring but the rear clasp was still missing.
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The landowner was called and the good news passed on.

We heard in the second half of 2021 that XP were going to launch a brand new version of the original iconic XP Déus in December 2021.
The launch was delayed to January 7th 2022 with most suppliers operating a first-come, first-served basis.
This led to a chaotic attempt for people to try and acquire a Déus II.
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One retailer announced before the launch that the only way to purchase a machine was online only as the shop was shut and not taking 'phone orders. Unfortunately, those that stuck to those rules missed out but those that didn't could order over the telephone.

The majority of the machines appear to have gone to YouTube influencers rather than experienced detectorists.
This is supported by the lack of the expected avalanche of finds that were expected, whether imaginary or factual.
There are far more images of Déus II boxes and machines than there are of the anticipated finds.
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Looking at the forums, nothing has changed at all!

A couple of the team have decided to perhaps purchase a Déus II, not because it is percieved to find more, it's simply more robust and there may be an advantage with it being a multi-frequency machine.
There's no rush to buy a Déus II as the Déus One has proved to be the best machine to date for us.

​Just as a reminder, this is what we've found with the Déus One.... Enjoy!

We revisited a site that we last surveyed in August 2019.
The field was in stubble in 2019 but was drilled with Winter Wheat this time around.
In 2019 we found about 63 pieces of Roman and Medieval pottery.
This visit produced well over 200 pieces of pottery (4.1Kg) from the Roman and Medieval periods. This shows that a freshly drilled field will reveal far more surface finds than a stubble field due to the Wheat chaff covering the surface.

Apart from constantly stooping to collect surface finds we had several metallic signals. Most of these were consentrated over an area that had large limestone rocks strewn across the surface. Amongst these were several pieces of Tegulae (Roman roof tiles) of differing sizes. This shows that there is at least one substantial Roman building here.

Apart from the pottery and non-metallic finds, we recovered 69 Roman coins, one Medieval coin and several metallic artefacts covering many historical periods. Belt mounts, Roman tweezers, a fibula pin, a Medieval casket key, Medieval skillet fragments and lots of lead pot-mends were included.

The crop was about 5-inches high so swinging the coils wasn't a problem.
Surface visibility was excellent, hence the vast amount of pottery that was recovered.

The consensus is that the site has Bronze Age beginnings with a Romano-British presence from AD 152 with increased ​activity in the late third century leading into the fourth century. The site is situated on the original Roman road running from a major Roman settlement to a Roman port or ferry point.
There is also evidence of a small amount of C14th activity in the field.

The images of the days finds can be seen here.​

Our Roman Site that has been excavated by DigVentures over the last 5-years has reached 100% funding within 24-hours of being launched.
​They are returning to this astounding site we discovered to uncover even more secrets of the farm's Roman past.

The excavation is scheduled to take place in August 2022 and will last for two weeks.

Their website has all the information on what has been discovered there.

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After a great start in a 3-hectare field that has produced more Early Medieval artefacts than any other period, we've come to a stumbling block.
We realised long ago that our most interesting fields would eventually become a challenge both financially, and in time-investment.
This has prompted us to follow up on many already researched sites.

The joy of this research has resulted in multiple sites that require a survey as soon as possible. Time is short as the Winter Wheat and Barley has already started to grow well. On top of this, we have to battle with the British weather especially as it has been very wet over the last two Winters.

Normally, we would have probably started off with some freshly drilled OSR but some farmers are giving it a miss due to the related problems in growing Oil Seed Rape.

This weekends weather forecast doesn't look good as Storm Arwen heads our way. On the flip side, this will give us more chance to review some of the many sites we've short-listed for permissive approach.

I spoke to a potential landowner who also know's a few other landowners in the area. This will mean more research <rolling eye's>

Whatever happens we'll update you as it happens.
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We were very lucky to be able to re-visit a 7-acre field that we surveyed back in April this year.
During that visit, the soil was quite fluffy and ready for the next crop of vining peas.

This time around however, the soil was a lot firmer being rolled, ready for the drilling of Winter Wheat.
The wheat was between stage one and two in growth rate enabling a smooth swing pattern and great field surface visibility for locating pottery etc.

The first coin to see the light of day was a Roman Constantine bronze and the nest signal was a Roman trumpet fibula.
The next coin was a tiny Anglo Saxon sceat dating to c. AD 690 - AD 735 followed by a cut-quarter of Henry I.

The next few hours were unbelievable as another Roman fibula was recovered along with two more sceats (plumed bird style) also dated AD 690 - AD 735.
Two hammered pennies of Henry I and one of Edward the Confessor were also recovered.

The farmer came over to see how we were getting on and we had a great chat about all things from farming techniques to the TV series; Clarksons Farm. We all agreed that it was highly entertaining and funny but also a good reflection on farming in general.

The land had been directly drilled for a number of years which isn't the best news for metal detectorists.
The farmer did say that he was considering moving back to ploughing again. Now this would change the composition of the fields on this farm.

Two pieces of Saxon pottery were recovered so, fingers crossed, we may uncover more.

This day was truely a dream day for all detectorists.
It is so rare to find an Anglo-Saxon coin never mind four in one day along with three early Medieval coins of Henry I.
What's even more astounding is the lack of interest/enthusiasm of other metal-detectorists on local forums at such an amazing day out on a stunning field.
Obviously, those lurkers on the forums can't be interested in how to find the items they so wish to find.
I think the forums members forget that we started off exactly where they are at present.
If I was one of those dream-seeking forum members, I would certainly try to find out how such amazing results are achieved.

Anyway, I'm sure that we'll have more great days out that genuine detectorists will appreciate................

HD images of the finds can be seen here.

The last time we were out as a team was the 25th April this year.
Since then, we've mingled with the archaeologists on our annual farm dig and the very same archaeologists on their annual dig on The Holy Island of  Lindisfarne.

Today, we visited an old favourite that we've that has provided lots of thrilling finds.
The three fields we surveyed were all drilled with winter wheat/barley.
Two had been surface worked to a depth of fourteen-inches and the other had been ploughed.

The banter started early with an eclectic  mix of satirical quips.

As you may remember, we survey three-abreast creating an 18ft swathe across a field.
Our coils virtually touch on the outer swings at times until we seperate due to the different finds rates.
Sometimes (well quite often really) the swathes are staggered with one or more of the team positioned ahead of the others.
One of the team was in this very position and had a signal and then pointed out to the person in front that the signal was right on the outer edge of their  swing. The  signal resulted in a silver hammered cut-half and a gloating from the finder to the person who 'almost' found it.
ew Medieval 
Karma was on it's way as the member that 'nearly missed' the previous  signal ALSO had a signal on their outer swing adjacent to the previous person that had gloated.
This signal turned out to be a denarius of Septimius Severus!

Anyway, after that tit-or-tat exchange we pushed on to try and find any more Roman evidence which we knew would be hard to come by.

We ma​naged to recover 20 Roman coins and 2.052kg of Roman pottery sherds with a few fragments of mid 14th century pottery and a cut-half penny. A sestertius of Faustina I was recovered in great condition with a lovely green patina.
A short, purposeful pin is an artefact we haven't seen before. Maybe used for piercing or perhaps picking out food such as snails or sea food?
The best artefact however was a large fragment of Bronze Age pottery known as Peterborough Ware and possibly a Mortlake sub-style dating to at least BC 2700.

We're hoping to follow up on some new potential permissions in the coming weeks.

​The artefacts can be seen here.

This was our second outing since September last year due to the lockdown restrictions.
We were very fortunate to be able to visit a new permission that had just been drilled with Spring barley and wheat with further drilling for vining peas.

The 7-acre field was rolled and destined for peas so we decided to survey that one first. The conditions were extremely dry with well defined roller lines to follow.
The first artefact to come to light was a lovely Anglo Saxon sceat dating to AD 710 and minted in York.
There were several ferrous signals as well as lots of lead which is usually a good sign that there has been lots of human activity there.

Speaking of lead, one of the crew had a strong signal registering 99 on the Déus control box.
After digging down over 24" a sheet of lead became visible and it was clear that the object was far bigger than the original hole so we had to enlarge the excavation.
At last, the lead bucket, as it was identified, was extracted. The estimated weight was 25-kilo's.

Apart from a few sherds of Medieval pottery, we recovered a Roman fibula, Roman coinage as well as Medieval coinage and artefacts. 
We decided to search the final headland and it was almost at the end of that search that we recovered a superb example of an Edward the Confessor penny. The coin was identified as a Sovereign/Eagle type penny and dates to AD 1056-1059.

​HD images can be seen here.

We managed to get out for the first time since September 2020!

We visited and old favourite that we hadn't been to for 15 months.
There was a choice of fields, some drilled last year and some that had just been 'worked' ready for drilling with vining peas.

The first field was a over a mile in length and was rolled making it perfect for detecting. However, the signals were very far and few between with thousands of tiny ferrous signals everywhere.

One of the team noticed that one of the other fields had been deep-ploughed and had potatoes in it last year. This year it had winter wheat drilled, with the shoots about 6" in length which was quite short for detecting. The downside was that it was a little too long in most parts for fieldwalking.
This field is 80-acres in size but we knew where the hotspots were located.
Surprisingly, only a couple of pieces of pottery and a few artefacts were recovered. This field had produced some spectacular finds over the years but we noticed on our visit 15-months ago that its 'finds-life' was nearly over as it has been properly 'battered' by us and two farming detectorists that live next to the field.
This shows that even after deep-ploughing, not a lot more exists within reach of our machines. Certainly not worth several hours of driving to get there and back anyhow.

Even so, of the limited number of finds, some of them were quite rare and unusual which sort of made up for the journey.

​With 10 Roman coins, fibula fragments and other items, the collection made a half-decent photograph. HD Images can be seen here.