What a super day (for a change!) to return to a permission (MC) that we haven’t been to since last October!
The survey was going to be split over four different areas; a large winter barley field, the remainder of a winter wheat field, a new area of another winter wheat field and a newly harrowed field.
The first field was fairly quiet apart from thousands of small ferrous signals.
After 4 hours in there we decided to re-visit the field we were in last October.
We found our markers still standing where we'd left them and carried on from exactly where we’d left off last year.
A lovely Iron Age belt slider (eye type) was recovered from 3 inches. A little later a nice denarius of Hadrian came up from 4 inches. A few Roman grots also emerged as well as thirty pieces of Romano-British pottery covering at least four types. A nice chatelaine fragment was a pleasure to see.
Having now covered the main area of this Roman settlement we left for field number three.
This was the harrowed field that we’d had a look at early last year. A few Roman and some Medieval coins were recovered at that time.
The soil was very “fluffy” and soft and we didn’t have a signal at all on the first pass. On the second pass a fragment of a Medieval dress hook and a very nice sixpence of William III 1696 was recovered.
The landowners’ son arrives on his quad to check on how dry the soil was for drilling. I asked how deep had he ploughed it to which he replied “it hasn’t been ploughed just harrowed to a depth of four inches”. No wonder we weren’t getting many signals!
Some nice flint scrapers were found here too.
With that info we visited a new area that was in winter wheat but this was very quiet. Only a couple of items were recovered here, one being a nice Celtic style mount fitting and the other item was a Medieval plate and rivet fixing.
A brilliant surprise was a barn owl hopping over the hedgerow and flying around the field at THREE O’ CLOCK in bright sunshine!!!!
The machines were set up as usual; GMP standard with “Tracking” and large coils.
For images of the day's finds click here.
The survey was going to be split over four different areas; a large winter barley field, the remainder of a winter wheat field, a new area of another winter wheat field and a newly harrowed field.
The first field was fairly quiet apart from thousands of small ferrous signals.
After 4 hours in there we decided to re-visit the field we were in last October.
We found our markers still standing where we'd left them and carried on from exactly where we’d left off last year.
A lovely Iron Age belt slider (eye type) was recovered from 3 inches. A little later a nice denarius of Hadrian came up from 4 inches. A few Roman grots also emerged as well as thirty pieces of Romano-British pottery covering at least four types. A nice chatelaine fragment was a pleasure to see.
Having now covered the main area of this Roman settlement we left for field number three.
This was the harrowed field that we’d had a look at early last year. A few Roman and some Medieval coins were recovered at that time.
The soil was very “fluffy” and soft and we didn’t have a signal at all on the first pass. On the second pass a fragment of a Medieval dress hook and a very nice sixpence of William III 1696 was recovered.
The landowners’ son arrives on his quad to check on how dry the soil was for drilling. I asked how deep had he ploughed it to which he replied “it hasn’t been ploughed just harrowed to a depth of four inches”. No wonder we weren’t getting many signals!
Some nice flint scrapers were found here too.
With that info we visited a new area that was in winter wheat but this was very quiet. Only a couple of items were recovered here, one being a nice Celtic style mount fitting and the other item was a Medieval plate and rivet fixing.
A brilliant surprise was a barn owl hopping over the hedgerow and flying around the field at THREE O’ CLOCK in bright sunshine!!!!
The machines were set up as usual; GMP standard with “Tracking” and large coils.
For images of the day's finds click here.
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