Our 2017/2018 season started twenty-two days earlier than last year.
This came about with one of our landowners in the Cotswolds indicating he'd harvested an area in Worcestershire we hadn't been to for three years.
This permission is actually owned by another landowner that we've never met.
We arrived on-site at 8am with a half-decent weather forecast for the day.
There were several fields available, but one in particular was one we'd never looked at. We think the stubble was barley stubble as it was quite soft. The field was full of deep cattle footprints, some ten inches deep!
The problem with this was that, when a hole was made, the soil we turned-over dropped into a cattle imprint along with the find. This is were the XP MI-6 proved invaluable in probing the hoof print to locate the finds that had dropped into it.
It was virtually three years to the day when we were here last and the over-riding memory from that visit was that we'd never seen so much lead, EVER .......on any of our permissions.
Nothing had changed, there was just as much lead on the new field as the others. The pieces ranged from pea-sized fragments to chunks the size of palm guards. This must be the result of the Civil War activity that occurred in the area.
A lady walking her dog asked if we were taking soil samples, as it happened, she was the wife of the person we thought was the landowner.
Later on that morning, her husband came along and was very enthusiastic about what we'd found previously, and what we might find today.
We promised to email the report to him as soon as the pictures and information were done.
Amongst the masses of lead recovered some were lead artefacts, some appeared to be drilled musket shot whilst others ranged from weights to bag seals.
A couple of Medieval strapend plates, several buckles (with some lovely C17th examples), C17th pottery and other Post-Medieval items.
During lunch, another lady walking her dog asked what were we doing. I told her that we were fieldwalking and metal-detecting. She said that she was the landowners wife and consequently we had a great chat and was very interested in what we do and how we did it. She added that they had land all along the river and we'd be welcome to search there. With that, she shook hands and wished us well.
We had a walk along the river to where the was an ancient crossing.
Coming towards us was a chap and his dog, Rob recognised the dog as the one that the wife of the landowner was walking. Sure enough, he was indeed the landowner. We introduced ourselves on a hand shake and instantly bonded with the landowner.
He wanted to show us a stone that he thought was interesting. It was led on its side and looked to be a gate post. It did however look "interesting" at eight feet in length and a little dished profile to its cross section. The stone object was ironically Cotswold Stone!
Again, he was very keen to see what we'd found and looked forward to the pictures and report via email.
We were surrounded by orchards and blackberries and had several encounters with the local (and vocal) Green Woodpecker whose old name was a "Yaffle" which meant laugh/laughter/laughing.
Images of the day can be seen here.
This came about with one of our landowners in the Cotswolds indicating he'd harvested an area in Worcestershire we hadn't been to for three years.
This permission is actually owned by another landowner that we've never met.
We arrived on-site at 8am with a half-decent weather forecast for the day.
There were several fields available, but one in particular was one we'd never looked at. We think the stubble was barley stubble as it was quite soft. The field was full of deep cattle footprints, some ten inches deep!
The problem with this was that, when a hole was made, the soil we turned-over dropped into a cattle imprint along with the find. This is were the XP MI-6 proved invaluable in probing the hoof print to locate the finds that had dropped into it.
It was virtually three years to the day when we were here last and the over-riding memory from that visit was that we'd never seen so much lead, EVER .......on any of our permissions.
Nothing had changed, there was just as much lead on the new field as the others. The pieces ranged from pea-sized fragments to chunks the size of palm guards. This must be the result of the Civil War activity that occurred in the area.
A lady walking her dog asked if we were taking soil samples, as it happened, she was the wife of the person we thought was the landowner.
Later on that morning, her husband came along and was very enthusiastic about what we'd found previously, and what we might find today.
We promised to email the report to him as soon as the pictures and information were done.
Amongst the masses of lead recovered some were lead artefacts, some appeared to be drilled musket shot whilst others ranged from weights to bag seals.
A couple of Medieval strapend plates, several buckles (with some lovely C17th examples), C17th pottery and other Post-Medieval items.
During lunch, another lady walking her dog asked what were we doing. I told her that we were fieldwalking and metal-detecting. She said that she was the landowners wife and consequently we had a great chat and was very interested in what we do and how we did it. She added that they had land all along the river and we'd be welcome to search there. With that, she shook hands and wished us well.
We had a walk along the river to where the was an ancient crossing.
Coming towards us was a chap and his dog, Rob recognised the dog as the one that the wife of the landowner was walking. Sure enough, he was indeed the landowner. We introduced ourselves on a hand shake and instantly bonded with the landowner.
He wanted to show us a stone that he thought was interesting. It was led on its side and looked to be a gate post. It did however look "interesting" at eight feet in length and a little dished profile to its cross section. The stone object was ironically Cotswold Stone!
Again, he was very keen to see what we'd found and looked forward to the pictures and report via email.
We were surrounded by orchards and blackberries and had several encounters with the local (and vocal) Green Woodpecker whose old name was a "Yaffle" which meant laugh/laughter/laughing.
Images of the day can be seen here.
RSS Feed
