We arrived at the field that was allegedly rolled and seeded but appeared to us as “cultivated” and a little rough around the edges, so to speak.
Anyway, we pressed on and a Victorian brooch surfaced with a small Roman brooch following within seconds of the first brooch!
It appears to be a first century Dolphin type mixed with a bit of “Langton Down” thrown in.
Two pieces of Roman pottery were recovered from the field surface nearby so it looked promising.
I'm afraid it went a little downhill from there as only a few more pieces of pottery and a couple of artefacts came to light.
It seemed strange to us that very little lead and such a small amount of finds were there?
It didn't really matter as, just as we were pondering the find status of the 14 acre field, a huge (and I mean huge) tractor pulled into the field and commenced a rolling operation.
That put paid to that survey so we decided to move to another area.
On the way there we called in at the landowner's house to say "Hi" and he told us that the field WAS seeded and that they roll it AFTERWARDS !
Jeeps, that's the first I'd heard of that happening, but there again, I'm not a farmer!
However, we arrived at another area that we haven't surveyed before and split to cover as much as we could in different parts of the landscape.
We kept each other updated using the two-way radios.
A few Roman grots and small amounts of pottery were found.
Again, very quiet considering the history there.
As there was so much land that we hadn't surveyed before we decided to try another area.
Jeeps! Our mate with the huge red tractor had beat us to the spot!
Luckily there was plenty of space for the four of us!
Some nice Roman, medieval and 16th century pottery along with a mix of artefacts and coins were eventually recovered.
A medieval dagger chape, dress hook, strap ends, buckles, a pot mend and a Venetian Soldino dating to c.1382 and a small amount of Roman items were found.
A nice Charles II maundy twopence dated 1679 was also recovered.
We aren't too sure where we'll be this coming weekend as I've a Gary Numan concert to go to on Saturday night in Manchester!
Early Sunday morning may be a little ambitious.