Wednesday 16 April 2014

Some finds from a park

One of my Local Councils allows you to metal detect on certain bits of their land with a free licence. Hrm as I'm writing this I'm wondering why I'm not saying which Council. Fear of some other detectorists ruining it? Selfishness? Not sure. Probably both.

Anyway one of the bits of land is near to where I often go to work. It consists of a number of old fields that were regularly ploughed till the 20th century when they were gifted to the Council as a park.

It makes for some interesting detecting. It was used for bonfire nights for quite some time until the health and safety folks stopped it so there is a fair amount of old decimal coinage, big 50 pences, decimal half pennies etc. There is also a zillion ring pulls. However there are also some older bits. I haven't done it much but have found a crotal bell and an old buckle,as below, in the past both of which have been recorded with the FLO.






Last week I found the below. No.6 I believe is a 'beehive thimble' (more info on thimbles here) which could be from the 12th Century onwards and No.7 is a part of a sword belt mount.








Since I started this blog I wonder if I should carry on detecting the park.

There are a number of things floating around my mind as to what a responsible detectorist would do. Some of these thoughts are, in no order of priority the following.

1. I don't have a lot of land to detect so would do ploughed if I could but don't have any.
2. Anyone with a permit can detect on it and it has been detected on before
3. If I make a little slide and show it to the 'Friends of the Park' would that be a 'good' thing to do?
4. At least I get the bits that I find recorded whereas others might not.
5. I make damn sure i'm neat and tidy when I dig my holes.
6. Should I just stop thinking and just carry on detecting!


Oh yes one question for the Archaeologists who don't like detecting because it takes an item out of 'context'. Let's say a local archaeology group came in, dug a pit and did their Archie stuff, is it then any better to detect or should you then leave the rest of the field in case the entire park is subject to a archaeological dig?

Life is easier when you don't think.

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