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.

Well, what a year 2020 has been, and what a disasterous start to our new season!

The last time we were out was the 27th September so we are hoping that the next opportunity will be 20th December. Even then, we aren't too sure where we'll end up!

Whatever happens, this looks like it will be our worst and shortest season to date. I'm sure we will do our very best to make up for the shortfall.

Look forward to reporting back before Christmas so stay safe!

We ventured out onto a new permission that looked to be great on paper.
The first pass on was on a field that probably dates mid to the late Iron Age.
The only find of note was part of a trumpet brooch that was corroded but identifiable. The plus-side was that the soil was fantasticacally sandy and so easy to dig!

We noted another field nearby that had a Romano-British site on it but again, we didin't find anything...no iron, lead or more importantly... no pottery!

We drove 35 minutes to a site that we'd covered since 2015 and a particular area that has been nighthawked for 20-years.
We still managed to recover at least 32 pieces of Romano-British pottery and at least 32 Roman coins.
A lovely terret ring came up and some pieces of the pottery were great! 

This weekend looks like a wash-out.

​Here's a link to the HD images..... Here

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Well this is a first, we're posting here without replicating the post on any metal-detecting forum.
​We arrived at the campsite with our borrowed caravan in half decent weather.
We met up with a chap that was going to survey one of our sites using a machine which measures resistivity so we may discover the extent of the second Roman villa we located in the area.
​This took the best part of two-days to complete ten-20mtr squares. 
The weather however was going to prove to be challenging at the least with the excavation being called off on two of the six days.

Whilst in the area, we called into a site that we first visited in 2014 and produced some of the best Medieval finds we've seen.
Unfortunately, the site is now waning as we only recovered a few artefacts.
This goes to show that finds will diminish over time to such a degree that unfortunately and sadly negates further visits.

We visited another site that produced a few RB items, but again, this has also seen better days. This site has been well searched by other detectorists and they have done an excellent job of it. So much so, we'll give it a miss in future.

Another site which looked promising appears to have an Iron Age fort there but nothing was found except a modern gold ring.

We also viisted a few areas around our dig site..... with mixed results.
​Denarii, hammered and various artefacts emerged whilst dodging the extremely wet weather which is unusual for this area.

A few weeks ago, we wrote to a landowner that may have a Roman villa on one of his fields. 
We called in on him a couple of weeks later and he said that the field wasn't his to which we said "it was!". We were there on his door-step for 15-minutes chatting about archaeology and trying to obtain a 'phone number!
We said we'd be back in the area in a couple of weeks' time to which he said he'd meet us at the field to see if it was indeed his.

Two-weeks later we arrived at one of his farms and the tenent said he was usually in the area on that day to collect his mail.
Sure enough we caught up with him collecting his post.
At first he was surprised to see us but he asked us to follow him to the field-in-question.
After about 2-miles, we eventually arrived at the field that we thought that there was a Roman villa situated. It was still in crop. The field WAS his!
The landowner invited us to "have a look" but we said we'd have to wait until the crop was harvested. He said he'd be cutting it as soon as it was dry enough.
The research shows that this site has great potential.

Meanwhile, the excavation at our farm site produced several RB walls that have been robbed-out in antiquity as well as other features that may have to be explored next year!

Here's a link to some of the images of the week.
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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!

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After a very misty journey the day brightened up to become quite warm, a balmy 23C!

We'd visited this field 2 weeks ago and covered 3-acres which produced the expected Medieval coinage and pottery that we'd recovered in past visits.
We were quite excited about searching this field again as it had been ploughed since our last full visit about a year previously.

We had a further 5-acres to survey and we thought that this could be achieved according to the formula we use to estimate field coverage.

Now for the boring technical bit.
Three different coils were used; a 9" HF, a 13" standard coil and the 13" X35 using standard settings.
There appeared to be a problem with the X35 coil as it was difficult to keep it stable and there was a moment in time where a change to the 9" HF coil was contemplated.
A drop in sensitivity from 90 to 78 seemed to calm things down but some small finds may have been missed during the first hour or so trying to get used to the amount of noise coming from the headphones. In hindsight I now realise that "good" signals will have been missed. As an example, the X35 coil only detected 16% of the total hammered coin finds using our usual strict search technique, even after changing the sensitivity back to the factory setting of 90.

Anyway, back to more 'exciting' things such as finding the 16 hammered coins, 1 siliqua of Valentinian II, a Medieval buckle that may have had it's origins in France and lots of C13th to C14th pottery.
If the siliqua is Valentinian II, there's quite an interesting story behind him.

One of the coins was attributed to 'John the Blind' kindly identified by Allectus on the MDF forum.
A lovely Medieval ring came up as well as a couple of worked flints.
I'm sure there'll be a challenge trying to ID the coins recovered!

HD images of all the finds can be seen here.