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OUT
AND ABOUT IN SKIDMARK
Title:
Ending up in Cheshire’s Pasture Fields
It was a couple of months after our last trip when we found the time and the fields available to be able to get away for a few days. For some time we had thought about trying new areas and with this in mind we decided to travel back to an area near York that we had last searched about eight years ago. We had about three days free and so headed off and had an uneventful journey. When we arrived it took us some time to find the fields we had searched so long ago. On that occasion we had stopped the farmer whilst he was potato picking and asked him permission to search a field. He had said OK. We didn’t know his name or even where he lived. Once we had found the fields we called in a nearby house with the intention of asking if they knew who owned the fields. Our luck was in for we had knocked at the door of the farmer’s father. He told us where the farm was and that if we didn’t get an answer there then we would be OK to go on the fields. He would tell his son we were there. We cheekily asked him if we could park Skidmark at the back of the barn across the road. ‘No problem’ he said. We called in at the farmhouse, reluctantly knocking on the door. Between ourselves we were saying that it just be our luck if the farmer came out and said ‘No’. ‘We already had permission, was it necessary to go through with this?’ As it was there wasn’t an answer and we didn’t hang around to wait for one. We were on one of the fields within ten minutes. Last month we mentioned the small portable radios that we used to carry. These had long been discarded as the batteries drained very quickly. On this trip we were to use the radios we had recently bought. These were a big improvement on the old ones, looked like mobile phones, and were said to last 40 hours on a single battery and had a range of up to two miles. We quickly checked out the radios and then got down to some serious metal detecting. Within about ten minutes, Mo’ was on the radio to let me know that she had found the first hammered coin of the trip. Both sides of this coin are shown in Fig 1.
That was a great start. We continued our search picking up the usual bits and pieces and noting nothing special on the field in the way of pottery, pipe stems, etc. The field we were searching was quite small and after several hours I decided to try the adjoining field that was far bigger. I’d no sooner hopped over the fence when the radio went. Mo’ told me that she had found another hammered coin, sadly broken. She told me that it was Irish, a King Edward penny. It is shown in Fig 2. It’s a shame this coin was broken for it is in good condition.
We continued on till dark and then parked by the side of the barn. We hadn’t been bothered by anyone and had a quiet evening. Two hammered in the first half day, not a bad start. The next morning we carried on as we left off, Mo’ on the smaller field and myself on the bigger. I began picking up a fair bit of Georgian copper coins and there were loads of pipe stems on the ground. “This area has got to produce”, I thought. Two rows later I unearthed the little 17th century Lincolnshire token shown in Fig 3. It is dated 1667. In the centre on one side it has ‘HIS HALFE PENNY 1667’. Around the edge it has ‘WILLIAM GARLAND’. The other side has around the edge ‘GAINSBOROUGH AND EPWORTH’, with the letter W G in the centre. These are very collectable pieces and I just wish we found more of them.
After several hours a tractor came on the field with a chemical sprayer on the back. As he drove towards me I walked to meet him. “Good Mornin’”, I greeted him. “are you the farmer?” “Yes I am,” he said, his voice telling me that he wasn’t in a very good mood, “I don’t mind you lot scouting about here, but I wish you’d ask first!” I didn’t mind that as I had the ideal answer. I told him about how we’d seen his Dad, got permission and called at the farmhouse but got no answer. It was obvious that his Dad had not told him. After calling his Dad a silly old so-and-so, his attitude changed completely, he was really friendly. He told me that we would have to move on as he wouldn’t like us on the field during or after he had sprayed the chemicals. He said we could go on the field next door, which was his. This had recently been ploughed and it was like walking on the ocean waves, it was real ankle-breaker stuff. We didn’t find a thing on this field and so by late afternoon decided that we had to move on. We had found a couple of hammered and renewed our contact with the farmer. We’d be back when the crops came out in the autumn. We elected to travel about fifty miles and go to the area we had searched in the last article. We knew the good field wouldn’t be free but we didn’t have any left here and so, it couldn’t be worse. The journey took us an hour and we parked down the lane, this time without incident! We didn’t have a lot of time as we had to travel to see Craig at Crawford Detectors to drop a display case of reproductions off to him. We spent the whole of the next day on the fields about here with nothing special turning up.
Mo’ had some trouble with her machine and picked up another whilst at the shop. We said our goodbyes and in a few hours were back at home. We had now entered those few months from March until July dreaded by most serious land detectorists when the only land that is available is pasture, set-aside or the odd bit that is being seeded with peas or potatoes, etc. There wasn’t much point in our travelling to our old stomping grounds as all the land was now in crop but we were determined to get out and about in Skidmark. We decided to try a little nearer home and one day through the week travelled about eighteen miles from home and knocked on the first farm we came to.. We were in luck, he gave us permission and had about eight fields, they were all pasture but he assured us that they had been ploughed within recent memory. That was good enough for us. Most of the fields were ten to fifteen acres in size and nothing about the fields pointed to them having anything historical about them, after all these were Cheshire fields. There was no little Saxon or Norman church nearby, no Roman road running close by just a few relatively modern houses scattered at intervals on the lane running by the fields. Finds can be made in counties like Cheshire but good finds are few and far between. Most Cheshire fields will contain a couple of grotty Georgian coins, a musket ball and several pieces of modern buckles along with the usual pennies and half-pennies. It’s as if hardly anyone has ever walked or worked the fields. We parked up and set about detecting. The day was glorious and very hot and we started to search one of the fields closest to the lane. Within minutes we began to pick up Georgian coins, quite a number of them. This was looking promising! Then the token shown in Fig. 5 turned up. On one side it reads ‘Stad Utretcht 1710’. On the other side is has a blank shield topped by a crown. We haven’t seen one of these before and the only thing we can find out about this token is that The Treaty of Utrecht concluded The Wars of the Spanish Succession but these treaties were signed in 1713/14? Our token was dated several years before this. Has any Searcher reader a clue as to the real identity of this piece?
But, you can never search this amount of land on a one-day trip. We started wandering all over the land, keeping in touch by radio. A lot of it was a case of walking into a field and then doing one strip down the middle and then another back up. If nowt was found then it was into the next one. But, what we have to remember is that …… ‘the fields have not been done properly’. All too often detectorists new to the hobby will wander into a new field, do a couple of strips and then state, ‘That field’s no good, I’ve done it’.
The evening was now turning dusk and we didn’t have a long time left. We had arrived back at the first field together, walking back towards the van as detectorists do towards the end of session – a bit like cattle walking to the milking sheds! Then I got a crisp signal right in the area where we had been finding the Georgian coinage, more than 17 of them at the final count. I unearthed a silver coin which I took to be a Georgian silver at first glance. This is shown in Fig 8. We think it is Austrian. It is dated 1732 and was minted by Lud XV. The legend on the obverse reads LUD. XV. D.G. FR. ??????.REX The reverse reads ?????????? MINI BENEDICTUM.
We called in at the farm house when we finished and showed the farmer and his wife the finds. Both were very interested, especially in the Cartwheel pennies as the famer’s wife said her daughter actually worked on the site where they were made. A few days later Mo’ went onto the Internet and downloaded and printed out a pile of info on the Mathew Boulton mint and sent this off along with several of the cleaned Cartwheel pennies. So we had cemented another detectorist/farmer relationship and there was no doubt that we would be able to call back another time, especially when the growing crops prevented us from venturing onto our normal fields. It was only a short time later that we were invited to give a talk to the Oxford Metal Detecting Club and, as it was a long way from home, we decided to travel down in Skidmark and make the trip last several days. This was so we could do a couple of days detecting in a new area and give the club the planned talk as well. What new goodies did we find? We’ll tell you all in next month’s edition of The Searcher magazine. |
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