Sunday 21st December 2014

It was with heightened enthusiasm that we headed towards our new permission; "WG" in the southern region of the British Isles.

On arrival we checked out the first field on our list "to do list" and found that it was very deeply ploughed. This was definately a no-goer!

We then attempted to locate the best way in to the next field on the list which had just been harvested with sprouts. There were millions of loose sprouts, sprout tree's and large leaves all over the field. This would make it rather difficult to field walk and awkward to detect.
We were joined by the landowners son as he was keen to have a go with us. He'd seen the amount we'd recovered from other permissions in the UK by looking at our Flickr site.
The Fisher 1266X was set up for him and off we went. His first find was a musket ball! After an hour or so his Dad came to collect him as he'd forgotten that he was going to the pictures to see the latest instalment of The Hobbit!

We decided to drive around to the top of the field and detect there. What a superb view overlooking this ancient village and the hills beyond.
Unfortunately this field had turnips in it and looked ready for harvest!
This gave us three options, go back to the sprout field, try the roughly ploughed field or have a chat with the landowner. We elected the third option.

We arrived at the farm and heard voices coming from the stables. We went to investigate. It was the landowners wife fitting a new bridle bit to her horse with her daughter on another horse. She asked how her son got on and when asked about the turnip field she said "no problem!". Whilst talking to her we noticed a large stubble field behind her, I asked about that, she just said "help yourselves". 

We drove down a farm track then onto the field itself and then drove over to the area nearest the C12th church which was about quarter of a mile away!!
It was quite a large field!
Our first signals proved to be medieval artefacts. More bits of lead emerged and other evidence of medieval activity.
A hammered coin of Edward Ist was recovered followed by a Charles Ist half groat. Another item looked to be a very early buckle being crudely cast in copper alloy.
Pieces of C16th pottery also came to light as well as a lovely Georgian toy rifle. A tiny piece of worked flint was a surprise on the day.

The sun had set on this, the shortest day of the year, so we closed down the survey an drove back across the field by headlight back to the farm track. The warehouse was in full swing boxing up all the sprouts from the surrounding fields.

The images for the finds on the day can be seen here  :)

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