Recently myself and my Dad visited a friend who owned a small farm in the hope of gaining permission on his land, the farmer had no problem with us detecting on the land however at the moment the fields were to long and were waiting to cut, however the farmer didn't want us to have a wasted journey so decided to take us to his neighbouring farm and introduce us there where were we also we given permission to detect. We had a quick tour round the fields by the farmer as usual then had a couple of hours detecting on one of the fields which we spotted a old footpath running through. After a little research and checking out the land on Google maps we decided to go back the following Saturday and detect a smaller field next to the river.
When we arrived at the location we were surprised to see that the field had be split into 3 tiers at different levels, We started detecting I was using my CTX 3030 and my dad his Etrac, and hour or so passed and we both had very few signals the field was extremely quite. After a disappointing start I decided to move up on the second tier of the field. Came across my first signal, nice, clean strong tone which turned out to be a 1900's Half Penny. Not 5 minutes later I stumbled on another signal slightly different a mid low tone but good enough to dig. Could believe what I knew it was old but wasn't 100% sure, took off to show my dad who was still detecting the second tier, we both were amazed and positive it was bronze Age. After 10 minutes to calm down I went back up to the field and carried on detecting, noticing my dad could resist and followed. Spent possibly another half hour detecting with out anymore signals then hit another, after the axe fragment find I couldn't wait to see what was beneath the surface, dug the hole and in the bottom could see what I thought was a copper pipe, pulled at it to remove it and what came clear was it was a complete spear head and 90% sure bronze age. Off I went again to sure the find to my dad, who was gob smacked but also slight jealous as he was finding nothing.
Carried on detecting for a few more hours hoping for more, didn't find much my self after that but my dad found another axe fragment and some odd stripes which were id as blade/dagger fragment. The following week we visit our Flo Ellie Cox to declare the finds and she identified them as Bronze age, she also explained if more relics were found it would be classed as a hoard, that was it a chance to find our first hoard, we had to go back. The second visit turned out to be the best, although tough at times because the filed was so quite and very few signals when you got one you just knew it had to be good. After a hour second hunt between us we found complete Bronze age Axe heads another larger spear but the tip missing, also the handle ends of to sword/daggers and more blade fragments. Perseverance paid off and we knew that we had found our first hoard. We contacted Ellie our Flo to tell her the news, she was very excited and wanted to see the rest of the relics. All 10 relics are now waiting to go to the British museum to go through the treasury act process and then hopefully get displayed in one of our local museums.
Kevin – England, UK
