End of Month Round Up — September 2019

Stepping back onto a ploughed field for the first time in well over a decade was a special moment. All the memories that I'd accumulated during the many thousands of hours spent upon them in the past came flooding back. Those special finds that had kept me awake at night. Those thoughts that had accompanied the moments of their discoveries. And those journeys into the ancient history of England that they'd taken me on.

When I followed along in the footsteps of my wife as she crisscrossed the first field that she had ever stepped out upon metal-detector in hand, I realised that I was already following along in the footsteps of my own long-established routines. As her finds came along I was already constructing a framework to slot them into, was already establishing patterns of sense for them and was already predicting what might come soon — or even next.

If Polly's Parlour keeps throwing a couple of these my way on every single trip, then I will fill this tray one day!

When I ventured out alone I discovered that one particular field (now known as Polly's Parlour) was really promising. There wasn't a lot to go on at first but soon a pattern began to emerge. Shirt buttons were found but at a rate that I had never encountered before. I know that shirt buttons are not exactly the most exciting find in the world but the point is that they were there in some quantity. To my way of thinking, when anything turns up in an arable field 'in series' and in discreet areas or along certain lines of direction then it means that they were probably deposited there not through the rather uniform mechanics of muck spreading, but were lost or discarded on-site.

And if one of these turns up on every other trip then I will amass a serious collection!

When I began to find lead and pewter toys in addition to the shirt buttons, I thought this rather interesting.  Shirt buttons alone would not have had the power to pull me back, let me tell you! These toys must be clear evidence of children at play within the field. I have never encountered any field that has ever produced so very many. In point of fact, I had found a few lead toys before and thinking back, these were all from a demolished 19th Century cottage site and its gardens, but I could not remember a single one that had come from any of my open fields.  

There are two deer, a Native American warrior on horseback, the head of the Victorian jockey, 'Fred Archer' and Judy's first proper find — the wheel from a toy train. That they have absolutely zero monetary value in such states as they exist now, well that's really not the point to me — for they do possess a certain aesthetic value that I find really satisfying. They remind me of a collection of Roman figurines and votive objects in many ways. The missing limbs. The uniform colour of their cream-coloured patinas. All this binds them together really nicely as a collection and I do hope that I find more and more of them. 

But how about any older finds? Those kinds of finds that metal detectorists are supposed to obsess over when they step out onto the arable and the pasture? Well, I'm afraid that I found very few items to obsess about at any great length ...

There was the top of a trefoil spoon — 17th Century. A very corroded gilt-brass belt mount used as a suspension point for something — Medieval. The lead cloth seal carrying the Arms of Ausburg, Germany — 1500 or later.

I really don't think that this particular field is going to produce much in the way of truly ancient objects and I do not care overmuch about that, to be honest. Just being out and about in the fresh air, with my dogs frolicking about in the river whilst I occupy myself with the pleasant task of digging up lead toys and brass shirt buttons — well, that's quite enough ...

For now!

Lead Cloth Seals — Augsburg, Germany, with Pine Cone Heraldic Badge. 1500-1650.

Lead cloth seal— Augsburg, Germany, with pine
cone heraldic badge. 1500-1650.  18mm.

The little coin-like object that at first, I believed was a button, on closer inspection turned out to be a cloth seal — what I thought was a crumpled and compressed loop on the reverse was actually a letter 'A' with a crooked bar. 

What could be more Post-Medieval than that? 

I thought that it might take some time to research, but I could not have been more wrong. I asked Judy to Google 'lead cloth seal' just so that she could understand what such a thing was used for and what they looked like in general, and hey presto! 

There it was! Another example! City of Augsburg, Germany!

Arms of Augsburg

I love lead finds when they carry interesting designs. I had this down as a pineapple but it's not one of those - it's a pine cone - and what I believed might be Prince of Wales feathers on top, just a very stylised interpretation of the capital of a column. I also had the whole design upside down in my head. The pine cone is supposed to be viewed upright.

Judy loves it. She has already begun to construct the story that lies behind its presence in our fields. 

That's what finds are for, surely? They are food for the imagination.



References
https://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/record/id/717337
https://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/record/id/778443
https://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/record/id/589636
https://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/record/id/882758
https://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/record/id/233781

Pineapple Feathers

Freddy carrying a brick in his mouth that he'd picked up in the stream at the bottom of the field.  Molly is still down there looking for one of her own. Quite why my dogs love to pull stones and bricks out of rivers I do not know but they take it very seriously! When I eventually reached the bottom of the field myself, the ground was strewn with them.

Another solo mission yesterday afternoon and on a different field than before. Time slot there was three hours and I decided that I would measure my recovery rate. I dug a total of 90 signals of which 15 were worthwhile finds, a few large chunks of iron, some shrapnel and the rest the scrap aluminium which seems to litter all of these fields. How it got to be there is now obvious to me because there are no specific concentrations of it and only an even spread that extends pretty much everywhere — therefore it was thrown out in muck-spreading operations. 

I still have to get to the bottom of the mystery of the IKEA cam locks of which we've now found five...

Thirty recoveries per-hour is good going. On my best Medieval fields down in Essex, I'd be lucky to get thirty in a full session of six hours! Mind you, out of those thirty a good hammered coin was always likely and a few artefacts inevitable. 

I've already decided that the first field we searched was probably lawned at some point and saw light activity during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The mix of coinage found there was just what I'd expect from parkland. This new field showed a typical mix of finds that was the same as I'd expect from any random arable field, anywhere — a few 18th century tombac buttons, what I think is a uniface jetton, a harness stud, a hollow pewter item that is probably from a flagon or similar, an oil lamp wick winder, and a heavy bronze vessel handle fragment. 

Only when I reached the bottom of the field did I find anything out of the ordinary run of things. Firstly, a large silver coin that appeared from the ground reverse side up. Obscured by adhering soil, the design could have been that of any milled silver coin from the 1690's until the early 20th Century. It was one of the latest! An Edward V florin. 

A few minutes later another circular coin-like object appeared and without reading-glasses, just for a second, I thought it was a Roman siliqua. With reading-glasses, it was apparent that it was not one of those but rather a lead button with a curious design upon its face...

A pineapple? An upside-down pineapple with Prince of Wales feathers atop it? 

Whatever it was, I liked it!