We paid a second visit of the new season to permission 'MC'.
This is the site where we found numerous brooches and parts thereof last week along with 10 Roman coins.
'MC' is a permission we acquired earlier this year at the back end of last season.
Due to the inclement weather we decided to survey a large stubble field that has two Roman roads and two Roman tracks running adjacent to it and through it.
It was raining when we got there and that continued for the next two hours.
We didn't know what to expect as we'd never surveyed this bit before so fingers were tightly crossed.
The two hours spent here saw lots of .303 cases and shotties surfacing. However, a nice Celtic or Roman artefact came to light, but no lead and not many small ferrous items for that matter were detected. There was no pottery either so the prospect of finding much more in the way of Roman or even medieval items was quite low.
Seeing that the rain had eased we decided to look at the field we were in last week. On the way there we bumped into the landowner and he said the photographs from last week were great.
We started off from where we left off last week with lots of small ferrous signals registering on the machines from the off.
The Déus' were set up in the usual standard GMP mode, 13" x 11" coils and 'Tracking' for one machine and manual GB for the other.
The field surface wasn't too bad although a little claggy with frequent stops to clear the Muck Boots of the excess mud accumulated. Lots of pottery was again retrieved and Roman coins came up along the way. Altogether, 18 coins were found, all within 4 inches of the field surface. Two of these are denarii. Some of the lead items came up at 12 inches in depth.
Near to the end of the survey the light levels were quite low and so the Déus backlight was switched to "On". This was the signal to return to the support vehicle.
Under torchlight we removed the outer gear with what seemed half the field attached to the boots! We set off down the track alongside the field and the headlights picked out a sharp left turn. We rolled downhill to the gap in the hedgerow. The expected continuation of the track didn't materialise..... so we came to a stop and thought we'd turn around... WRONG! There was nowhere to turn so we thought we'd just reverse the vehicle exactly the way we'd come...wrong again. In 4 wheel drive and Lo-gear it still wouldn't move!! Steve and I got out and decided we'd push the two and a half tonnes of vehicle mass up the gradient that we'd come down.
By some miracle, it started to reverse with all wheels slipping and sliding! We must have gained super human strength due to the embarrassing thought of having to ring the landowner to tow us out!
Eventually we got to where we turned and left the field the way we came in.
We managed to catch a fox crossing our path and trotting off over the field we'd just surveyed.
The pictures, as usual, can be seen here.
This is the site where we found numerous brooches and parts thereof last week along with 10 Roman coins.
'MC' is a permission we acquired earlier this year at the back end of last season.
Due to the inclement weather we decided to survey a large stubble field that has two Roman roads and two Roman tracks running adjacent to it and through it.
It was raining when we got there and that continued for the next two hours.
We didn't know what to expect as we'd never surveyed this bit before so fingers were tightly crossed.
The two hours spent here saw lots of .303 cases and shotties surfacing. However, a nice Celtic or Roman artefact came to light, but no lead and not many small ferrous items for that matter were detected. There was no pottery either so the prospect of finding much more in the way of Roman or even medieval items was quite low.
Seeing that the rain had eased we decided to look at the field we were in last week. On the way there we bumped into the landowner and he said the photographs from last week were great.
We started off from where we left off last week with lots of small ferrous signals registering on the machines from the off.
The Déus' were set up in the usual standard GMP mode, 13" x 11" coils and 'Tracking' for one machine and manual GB for the other.
The field surface wasn't too bad although a little claggy with frequent stops to clear the Muck Boots of the excess mud accumulated. Lots of pottery was again retrieved and Roman coins came up along the way. Altogether, 18 coins were found, all within 4 inches of the field surface. Two of these are denarii. Some of the lead items came up at 12 inches in depth.
Near to the end of the survey the light levels were quite low and so the Déus backlight was switched to "On". This was the signal to return to the support vehicle.
Under torchlight we removed the outer gear with what seemed half the field attached to the boots! We set off down the track alongside the field and the headlights picked out a sharp left turn. We rolled downhill to the gap in the hedgerow. The expected continuation of the track didn't materialise..... so we came to a stop and thought we'd turn around... WRONG! There was nowhere to turn so we thought we'd just reverse the vehicle exactly the way we'd come...wrong again. In 4 wheel drive and Lo-gear it still wouldn't move!! Steve and I got out and decided we'd push the two and a half tonnes of vehicle mass up the gradient that we'd come down.
By some miracle, it started to reverse with all wheels slipping and sliding! We must have gained super human strength due to the embarrassing thought of having to ring the landowner to tow us out!
Eventually we got to where we turned and left the field the way we came in.
We managed to catch a fox crossing our path and trotting off over the field we'd just surveyed.
The pictures, as usual, can be seen here.
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