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Hunting In Anglesey, Wales
By Ernest Zimmerman
The four days of illness, due to the 'tainted' hamburger meat I had eaten a few days earlier, were beginning to ease up, the rain filled clouds which visited us for a few days finally showed signs of breaking away and Andrea's cat, the big one with pitiful table top manners, quit sleeping next to my plate as I ate my supper. These were the signs which pointed to a new beginning in the quest for treasure(s) to found on Anglesey, Wales.
Andrea's daughter, Amanda, was over for morning coffee. She brought with her news that she had help in locating an area on Holy Head Mountain that would be an interesting, and hopefully, a rewarding hunting area. She told us of a friend of hers who had called earlier the previous evening giving her some much sought after details regarding the location of Roman coin hoards which were discovered in that area. With maps and pads in hand, notes and drawings were quickly put together as a means to guide us to this potential hunting area. We sucked down the coffee, packed our things in no time and were off inside of twenty minutes of Amanda's arrival.
I had no idea that speed limits where meaningless numbers on sign posts for the young on this island of Anglesey, especially to the young driver who operated the controls of the auto we were inside of during our jet-ride to Holy Head Mountain.
The ride to Holy Head took only half an hour, of which I was able to watch (briefly) the change in the types of ground and foliage that made up the passing scenery. The Northeastern portion of the Island was our target area. "Roman coins" I kept thinking to myself, "Soon, yes, very soon, indeed, one of these little beauties, at last, would be rolling around in the palm of my palm". I couldn't wait to get out of the car when it finally stopped and make that 500 yard dash uphill, over rocks and small protruding boulders. After the first 50 yards I decided to slow down and pace myself, save the much needed energy for swinging the loop across this ancient area which I've longed for so much. Puff, puff, and more puff, puff! Uphill and still climbing. Finally, the hard, rock like roadway gave way to a lesser traveled upon path. Small pieces of slate filled the path-like walkway while the healthiest heather I have ever seen made for difficult detector operating. I had to keep my loop higher to clear the heather as I swung the loop, carefully, too. Optimistically, I kept up with the hunting in the thick heather infested area, still climbing in attitude while following a faint pathway to what appeared to be, at last, the top (Hooray!)
A much needed rest was taken when we reached the crest of the hilltop we worked so hard to get to. It was more of a peak, a lookout point over the sea that separated Wales from Ireland. The view was simply put as breath taking! We broke for our lunch break here. As I munched away on cheese and crackers, I gazed about the area taking note of the key position that it provided a viewer. There were many large, slate rocks scattered about the top, providing a good out of sight area to nest at and from being seen from a ship out at sea. Could the early Romans sat where I was now sitting, eating and resting from a day's activities? The heather was a lot more thinned out at the top. There were signs of fire which had, at one time not too long ago, burnt the heather to a manageable height, providing a better opportunity to use our detectors in locating possible artifacts which may have been missed by previous detectorists. Terry Wilson, a detecting buddy I befriended earlier, and mother, were chatting about the beautiful view at hand when I suddenly had the urge to resume my hunting in the immediate area. Within a few minutes I was up and swinging my trusty loop in the immediate area. A slow pass over a clump of burnt heather caused me to stop in my tracks as a signal quickly worked its way up from the loop to my headphones. The announcement of a target at hand was short, but ever so sweet. The mid tone "Beep" made me wonder what it was that was sleeping under this particular clump of heather.
Being in an area where 'beeps' have not been plentiful, I decided to go for the hidden object so neatly tucked under the burnt heather bush. My trusty three-in-one knife was unleashed from its hinged cage hanging from my belt. The 'sniff' of treasure excited the cutting beast so much it jumped from my hands towards the direction of the just found target. Actually, I was such an excited wreck, my over anxiousness caused me to drop my cutting tool, blade-first, onto my right foot. After a quick and accurate count of my toes, and a re-count, to be sure, I was satisfied that everything was accounted for and began to pry apart the remains of the burnt heather. Its amazing as to the amount of brut strength one needs to remove the cut roots of a heather bush. Stubborn little things they are! But, persistent as I was, the roots finally gave way, one at a time. Finally, I managed to get down to a depth of about five inches with my fingers in the small access hole. Ouch! It was sharp! It bit my finger! I did not hesitate to withdraw my fingers quickly. I stared down into the darkness of the hole I just made, seeing if there was a pair of eyes looking back at me. Nothing. Nothing moved, no sound. "I must have pricked my finger on a sharp object" I thought, and with that, I went after it, Whatever it was, it was made of metal, had two pointed ends and quite sharp. One good yank finally did it and the item I held in my hands suddenly became the oldest thing I had ever recovered in my life: A Roman fork!
I sat down and gleamed while holding my best ever find. The fork was inspected over and over before passing it along to Terry and mother. Its condition was unbelievable. Had I any cheese morsels left from my lunch the fork would have soon earned its keep before placing it in my 'goodie pouch'. The remaining time soon afterwards was spent scouring the immediate area for any other Roman artifacts, hopefully a coin or two would pop up. Nearly half an hour passed when Terry hailed me to come see what he had just found. He was still positioned where he found a Roman copper coin and was eagerly at work retrieving what he had hoped to be a second Roman coin. The first was weathered. It did have an image of a person standing while holding a sword in one hand and a shield in the other. The image was still able to be distinguished from the scares made by many years of corrosion. It did have a hole in it and was thought to have been worn by its owner before the string/chain broke loose. Then Terry pulled out another Roman coin, this one was about 12 inches away from the first. It, too, had a hole in it, was in a terrible state of condition, save for its roundness, was thought to have belonged to the owner of the other coin. Further hunting in the area for a metal chain proved useless. We decided to call it an afternoon and began our walk down the mountain side. The clouds where getting darker with nearly every step we took on the way down. Terry commented that we had another twenty minutes or so before the rains would visit us. Good advice as this added a little more bounce to our step towards the car. We just got ourselves all snuggled up in the small car when the heavens opened up and sprayed the mountains with rain. The rain kept up so we called it a day and were driven, a lot slower this time, to a warm and dry house. We emptied our 'goodie pouches' of their contents onto the kitchen table for re-examination. With coffee and some warm sweet rolls we talked about the day's activities and surprised finds. It was a good day, indeed.
The rain had visited for a few days with a good washing. We kept ourselves indoors and enjoyed the company of Andrea, her daughter, Amanda, and Amanda's two small boys, Chris and Adam. A happy family we were. The rains would let up to a misty-like rate of fall. When such times were at hand, we would hop into the car and drove off to the stores for 'take-away' dishes, usually fish and chips. The days of rain were not considered 'down time' as far as detecting went. We used this time as an advantage in preparing for the next few drives out to selected area where we would hopefully recover some decent finds.
The first day of sunshine made way for a trip to a very large farm field. This field, rather, a large group of fields, belong to the president of the Farmer's Guild of Wales. We were introduced to him at his house and there he gave us some helpful tips as to the history of his land. In short the several older buildings were built in the late 1500's and early 1600's. The higher area, where large rocks were abundant, were places on which the farm hands would spend days and even weeks minding the sheep and cattle. There were many hundreds of acres in this one field only. We decided to make this field the main hunting area for the next few days. There was much to see on this one field alone. There was a large stone marker in the middle of one section, believed to be Celtic, and on an another attached field there was a burial ground marked with a gigantic rock formation. I later inspected this site and did find an entrance way to caverns below the huge rock mass. There was, fortunately, several boulders acting as deterrents to entering the caverns below. The large rocks were cut and fitted just so, making it almost impossible to gain entry into the cavern. I looked and took in this breath taking piece of workmanship of centuries ago, then left it alone as I found it. The State archeologists have not yet worked this burial site due to the fact that the owner did not call them in to examine it. He told us that if he would do this, the land would be tied up for years as a loss to him for he needs this pasture land keep his flocks fed. We decided to hunt the adjacent, larger field across from this one. There were many flat rocks where activity might have taken place over the years. It was here that we would spend the rest of the day.
I was ready. It was quiet as I stood still facing the massive field with near ancient dwellings. My goodie pouch hung loosely from the side of my hip. The sun was warm at two o'clock. The wind was gentle. The temperature was most agreeable. My gloved hand clutched firmly the handle of my trusty Eagle Spectrum metal detector. My thumb slowly worked it way up the handle and finally gave a solid, determined amount of pressure upon the "ON" button of the pod's keypad releasing the mighty electronic processors within to do my bidding. "Blip...beep...zip...pop...bleep" were the soft, subtle sounds emitted from the internal speaker as the Spectrum readied itself for its impending mission . (sorry, but I just couldn't pass by on this type of introduction)
The first area where I concentrated my search on this field was at the higher location. I thought that, years ago, field hands who would be tending the flocks, days on end I hear, would like to have a hard but dry area to park their rumps on when the rains came. So, it was for the most part of the day that I hunted around the rocks and ledges that dotted this area of the field. The finds for the larger part of the day were, unfortunately, scarce. What I did pick up were a couple of early 1900's King George large pennies. One was in horrible condition while the other was fairly decent.
Mother was diligently working the lower end of the same field and was kept busy providing a most thankful service by removing small tractor parts, pieces of barbed wire ( carefully, too ) and one current coin, a current Pound piece. She was a little discouraged with the lack of activity that is the blame for most folks to lose their change and other personal items. She was, however, very happy indeed, that she did quite well in navigating around the little 'patties' which littered the field, without once taking a regretful step.
It was time to work my way down the slopped area I was detecting to join mother and make ready for the trip to the house.
While swinging the loop I had caught eye of her sitting on one of the flatter rocks having her 'end-of-the-day-smoke'. Then it happened. "Beep!". I quickly dropped to the grassy spot and frantically tore away at the covering...only kidding. I did lay the detector down and proceed to carefully remove the hidden object from about five inches deep. It was a silver plated cross with an inlaying of thin wood. It was a good find...now to locate the chain, or was it a cord? It took another good fifteen minutes of hunting before I gave up on the idea of a metal chain in the immediate area where the cross was found. Again my Spectrum sang out to me: "Beep!". Mother was still sitting on the rock, nearly ten yards from where I began to see what it was that jumped under my loop. As she watched on, I poked and pulled at the grassy earth until it was felt. Upon removing the target from the hole I was delighted to see that it was a coin. With a little pinch of my fingers to see what sort of coin it was, a bright silvery glow hit my eyes. It was a silver coin! It turned out to be a 1825 George IV silver Shilling in very good condition. This would be the only silver coin I found on the island this trip.
It was late, so mom and I walked towards the car. We talked about the day's hunting and looked at what each was bring back to the house. Mom had her one-pound piece(she discarded the tractor parts) while I was flipping the silver shilling as we walked back to the car for our drive home. It was a good day.
The End
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