A pre-journey team breakfast snack of warm mini-doughnuts was the start to a very good day indeed. The weather was perfect with no wind and a bright sky.
The survey area was planted with spring barley and had a growth height of three inches which was ideal for fieldwalking providing us with superb surface visibilty. This was to prove invaluable during the day.
All three machines were fitted with the 13" x 11" coils and running on the standard GMP mode with "Tracking" automatically adjusting the ground balancing properties.
The first pass, which started in the contaminated area where we were parked, took us down the longest length of the field and produced modern lead and a nice conditioned 1882 Victorian penny.
The second pass heading back towards the support vehicle was even quieter with no good signals and no surface finds. It was at the very end of this run that our fortunes were about to change. A signal was located just below the surface, at five millimeters, in the highly contaminated zone next to the parking area. The rusty coloured disc was the first coin to be recovered with the new Garrett AT Pro-Pointer! On cleaning, it began to show that it was an Anglo-Saxon coin of Aethelred II (The Unready) dating to c.997 AD
A nice lead document seal dating to the mid C17th was recovered along with spindle whorls, an Elizabethan sixpence and a Phillip & Mary groat, along with various pieces of flint.
A polished spherical stone was found and was probably used as canon fodder by the Royalist forces camped there.
However, the most suprising finds were recovered from the field surface in the form of eight large fragments of Iron Age quern stones! We thought it was amazing when the second one was found but as the number recovered rose, our amazement turned into pure astonishment. The total for the quern stones recovered for the area is now ten!
After all the excitement of the quern stones and the Anglo-Saxon penny it was decided that we would have an hour on another permission. This was the one where we had to abandon the survey due to the inclement weather last week. The time spent should be enough to end two surveys in one go!
The first signal on this section was the surface find of the gold plated stater of the Corieltauvi tribe. More musket balls were recovered as well as a lovely Elizabethan sixpence in great condition, our second Elizabethan sixpence of the day!
The images of all the recoveries can be seen here.
The survey area was planted with spring barley and had a growth height of three inches which was ideal for fieldwalking providing us with superb surface visibilty. This was to prove invaluable during the day.
All three machines were fitted with the 13" x 11" coils and running on the standard GMP mode with "Tracking" automatically adjusting the ground balancing properties.
The first pass, which started in the contaminated area where we were parked, took us down the longest length of the field and produced modern lead and a nice conditioned 1882 Victorian penny.
The second pass heading back towards the support vehicle was even quieter with no good signals and no surface finds. It was at the very end of this run that our fortunes were about to change. A signal was located just below the surface, at five millimeters, in the highly contaminated zone next to the parking area. The rusty coloured disc was the first coin to be recovered with the new Garrett AT Pro-Pointer! On cleaning, it began to show that it was an Anglo-Saxon coin of Aethelred II (The Unready) dating to c.997 AD
A nice lead document seal dating to the mid C17th was recovered along with spindle whorls, an Elizabethan sixpence and a Phillip & Mary groat, along with various pieces of flint.
A polished spherical stone was found and was probably used as canon fodder by the Royalist forces camped there.
However, the most suprising finds were recovered from the field surface in the form of eight large fragments of Iron Age quern stones! We thought it was amazing when the second one was found but as the number recovered rose, our amazement turned into pure astonishment. The total for the quern stones recovered for the area is now ten!
After all the excitement of the quern stones and the Anglo-Saxon penny it was decided that we would have an hour on another permission. This was the one where we had to abandon the survey due to the inclement weather last week. The time spent should be enough to end two surveys in one go!
The first signal on this section was the surface find of the gold plated stater of the Corieltauvi tribe. More musket balls were recovered as well as a lovely Elizabethan sixpence in great condition, our second Elizabethan sixpence of the day!
The images of all the recoveries can be seen here.
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