The Park — Pasture ... Oh, Lovely Pasture!

Pasture ...

Oh, lovely pasture!

I'd forgotten just how lovely pasture land could be ...

I'd also forgotten about the very many frustrations that it might impose upon the detectorist!

The pasture land that we have, consists of two large fields one of which is poorly preserved ridge and furrow and the other was once part of the deer park surrounding a Medieval moated house. Promising, you might say, but just because both fields have Medieval usage written all over them, this means very little. They may still prove to contain not very much in the way of Medieval material.

There are also two smaller fields, one of which is tiny and was my first port of call. There I dug modern detritus at the full depth of the topsoil — and so I let it be! The second small field was quiet and when I dug a WW2 webbing buckle at eight-inches I thought that to be about right for an item of such a date. I then tried the deer park field which was quiet also, but then I spotted a lone sheep away from the flock and defending a feed trough. Of course, this was a ram, and a big boy he was! 

I really don't mind being amongst ewes and lambs. I really don't mind being amongst cows, heifers and calves. I really do mind being anywhere near rams and bulls because they are territorial and will kill to defend what is rightfully theirs — which is the right to procreate!

The ram watched me and I watched the ram. I could not concentrate on detecting until I reached the other side of the field and the relative safety of a handy barbed-wire fence that I could dive over should things turn bad. This fence marked the route of an ancient footpath. And so I detected along it hoping to find evidence that the field would give up items of some age and at a reasonable depth. 

It did. A Georgian tunic button at around seven inches depth and a Victoria penny at around nine inches. I was very pleased with this because it may mean that the field will provide ancient items that have not sunk so far down as to be out of range to a deepish-seeking machine such as the XP ADX150.

And then the cattle, who had been grazing in the ridge and furrow field returned to the deer park. This did not worry me unduly until one of them mounted another when I knew that a bull was on site! And so I departed the field for the one just across the handy barbed-wire fence ... 

Immediately!

And so, my desired pasture experiment was over before it had really begun...

This 'safe' field was arable and one that I had detected a few times before. It had not provided much in the way of good finds but what finds it had provided seemed, on average, to be older than those from Polly's Parlour next door. Once again, it lived up to this trend with the occasional Georgian button, some old coinage and other odds and ends — but then, up from the earth came a very interesting fragment of a bronze — err — vessel?

I'd never seen anything like this. However, I had seen many things that certain elements of its decoration reminded me of. For instance, the background stippling which consists of repetitively punched annulets made with the same tool ... 

Punched annulets? What do they say? 

I don't know about you ... but, Medieval and earlier is what they say to me!

What the 'anchor-shaped' element means I cannot imagine. That it was once part of a larger design is for certain, but what kind of design would that have been? All that I can say is that linear elements in Saxon and Romanesque art were often longitudinally divided by two lines into three parts.

Also, it is in remarkably good condition if it is indeed of such an age. The metal is so clean that it appears to have been in the ground for just a few tens of years. However, the nearby river was redirected in the late 19th century and once again in the nineteen-eighties when an arterial road was constructed across it. It may have been buried under river gravels for many centuries and then deposited in the field within a load of dredged spoil.

Bronze items from such a context can stay just as fresh and sharp as the day they were deposited, believe me. But of course, it may just be modern — but if so, then I cannot imagine just what kind of modern object it could be from.

However, it is whatever it is, and is from whenever it was made, and nothing whatsoever can change that fact!

But finding that fact?

We'll see ...