Abbey Cottages — Over the Wire!

One sunny August morning I'd arrived on-site, leant my bike against the barbed wire fence, and then started detecting in the thicket.

Just as soon as I had, an ancient Land Rover turned up and out jumped an equally ancient, but sprightly and vivacious woman ...

Dressed in ragged skirts and apron, woolly jumpers, a tattered and torn waxed-jacket with a blue headscarf (that may indeed have been a tea towel!) tied by a kneck knot around her head, and for footwear, sporting wellington boots with the tops turned down ... she was the absolute spit of a Van Gogh peasant.

Quite a picture she was!

Opening the gate to the cattle field, she drove into ...

Was this the Queen of England? Or was she my landowner?! 

I thought that, she must be the latter, and that I'd better introduce myself sharpish while I had the chance, explain what I was up to and then ask outright for permission to use my detector in the ground across the now hated barbed-wire fence ...

I called out to her in my best voice just as if she were the Queen of England, said my hello's, and then we started talking — and to my satisfaction — once I was convinced that she was indeed queen of this land and a generous one too, and I'd convinced her that I was indeed a madman but only a harmless one, she said that she'd give permission readily if only I would do her one small, tiny, tiny, incy, wincy little favour ...

I agreed! Without knowing quite what kind of favour it was that I was agreeing to ...

She beckoned me into the field, opened the tailgate of the old jaloppy, told me to get in the back, sit atop the pile of mangelwurzels there and pitch one out every five seconds as she drove around the bumpy hoof-pocked field.

I did as I was told!

And when we were done, the cattle, who had been absent all the while, began ambling back from an out-of-sight field down by the river and proceeded to chomp down on their breakfasts.

Having secured my permission, and with the cattle well away from the house site, I ambled back to the bike only to find that it was gone. I'd left my gear in the thicket but discovered, thankfully, that it was still where I'd left it. And so my new permission had cost me dearly — and to the tune of a sore backside, a mountain bike and a long walk back home! 

I had not lost my precious C-Scope 770D (with radical modifications!) which had stood me in such good stead over the past few years, and so I took this all in good humour and set back to work. 

 Hair ornaments?  Silver-plated copper-alloy. 59mm x 44mm.

I found that the soil in this new patch of mine had been somewhat modified by the hooves, the urine and the droppings of the cattle and to my initial dismay that copper-alloy items were often found broken, distorted, or in a corroded state. However, it was to prove worthwhile. Not everything was damaged but the chances were much higher than I had experienced previously when most everything had come out the ground in superb condition.

The womenfolk of the house had been noticeably absent from the finds record in the thicket and on the ramp, but as the days and weeks passed I began to find the evidence of them in the form of costume jewellery and other small trinkets. Two identical copper-alloy items, that I think are probably a pair of hair ornaments, were found nearby to each other but on separate occasions. They were in very different states of preservation (as you can see above) where one example is quite corroded whilst the second example is not at all and retains traces of silvering.

The rings on my left pinky. These are rings are small.

There were also three small finger rings of gilt-brass, two of which were broken and one complete and in good shape but missing its stone. These were as feminine a find that I could have made because they were certainly not made for men or boys.

Of course, I was to find more thimbles but thimbles were not necessarily the sole property of women, were they? I also found lots more buttons (I would eventually amass a collection of 40 specimens) which comprised of dandy buttons, military and service buttons but also small closed-back jacket buttons that did appear to be feminine.

One morning I discovered an item that at the time I hoped might eventually lead me to the name of the man of the house. This was a rectangular brass from a leather horse harness, and better, it was engraved with the owners initials and later I also found a circular martingale brass but this was a straightforward fretted example in the form of the sun or a star.

Thereafter, I called my man of the house, 'Bill Cobb'!

I thought that to be a name suiting such a country gentleman as him.