The opening day of the DetectingWales.com 2-day Spring Rally dawned bright and sunny and detectorists from four nations gathered expectantly at a farm just south of Bristol.
A total of twelve fields were available for detecting on the Saturday, all pasture. The area had a wealth of history surrounding it, from iron age to Roman, Saxon, Medieval through to the post medieval era. Before the weekend was over members of DetectingWales.com would find items from all these periods of history.
Chef (Geoff) was our man on the spot, living not too far away, so he had done the reccy of the site and had researched the land, producing maps with numbered fields on them so that members could navigate their way around the farm.
Chef explained the history of the area and pointed out that somewhere on the land there was the site of a lost medieval church.
Members were also asked once more to fill in their holes carefully. Most people made a good attempt at this, although there were still examples of poorly filled holes. This was not helped by the dry weather.
A token hunt was one of the attractions of the weekend and Tafflaff (Rob) had been round on the Friday evening burying the tokens. These had been confined to a single field so they weren’t too difficult to find. We’d learned our lesson on that. The first time we held a token hunt, on an Easter rally in Caerleon, we spread them over the whole rally site and only about four percent of the tokens were actually found. This time about ninety four percent were found.
At the off, most people opted to start detecting on the token field and it wasn’t too long before they started coming up. After a while members started to spread over the other fields and soon the first hammered coin appeared. It was a lovely half groat of Henry VI found by Saxonman in field 11.
Steven King made his contribution soon after with a hammered penny, possibly of Edward IV. Then quite a few Viccy silver coins started appearing.
At this point we were honoured by a visit from Mother Teresa, or it could have been Lawrence of Arabia (or it could have just been Rambo wearing a towel on his head…).
Bymatt666 unearthed a Krauwinkel jetton dating from the sixteenth century. By this time people were reaching the further parts of the farm and MC Hammered, Roman (Ray)’s brother who had come all the way down from Scotland, along with Reiver, to attend the rally, found a nice milled Charles II shilling in field 7.
During the afternoon, members of the local historical society turned up to have a look at what we were up to. Members made them welcome and Waltonbasinman, DetectingWales.com’s archaeological advisor, was able to point out to them a previously unknown lost medieval village in the area.
At 4.30 in the afternoon everyone convened at the old tythe barn for the token hunt raffle. Everyone who found a token was given a raffle ticket and then the tickets were drawn to distribute the prizes. We had two tables bulging with prizes, including a radio-controlled helicopter, hats, finds bags, multimedia speakers, detector covers (donated by Thesaurus UK), a really nice Minelab rucksack that was coveted by most of the assembled throng and all kinds of other goodies. The star prize was a copy of Bill Wyman's Treasure Islands book, signed by him and sent to us personally by his own fair hands.
Thanks to Minelab, Whites and Regton for their generosity in contributing to our array of prizes.
Legacy Hunter (Deb) stepped in to render assistance, as she normally does when assistance is required, in calling the raffle numbers (speak up a little next time Debs
) and the prizes were quickly distributed.
Saxonman managed to provide a small distraction to the proceedings by falling through his seat but he wasn’t hurt and after everyone had stopped laughing the raffle continued.
Legacy Hunter (Deb) got her reward for being so helpful with the raffle by winning the star prize, Bill Wyman’s book.
After the token hunt raffle had finished most people either went home or went on to the campsite. A few hardy souls went back to the rally site for another session, however. Waltonbasinman was one of these and managed to find himself a little hotspot, coming up with nice little gold-plated snuff or powder box (complete), a silver mount from a cane or walking stick and a cartwheel penny.
At the campsite preparations were soon underway for the evening barbeque. Chef (Geoff) was in charge of proceedings and with the aid of a few willing helpers to peel vegetables and skewer kebabs including Rob, Mr and Mrs Parkijohn, Mrs Davi, Leighton and the ever helpful and rather put-upon Deb, the feast started to come together.
Whilst everyone was waiting for the food to appear most people made their way over to the caravan of Laura and Nick of Detecnicks fame. There they were able to peruse their range of detectors and accessories. Laura and Nick took a full part in the weekend’s activities, managing to do some detecting on both days. We appreciate them coming down and hope they can make some future DW rallies.
The food arrived after dark and Chef provided a fine array of fare including his delicious Indian curry as well as the usual burgers, hotdogs and kebabs. As usual there was much too much food for everyone to get through but everyone did their best!
Altogether the barbeque was a great success. There was a great atmosphere and I think everyone really enjoyed themselves.
The next morning saw the campers packing up and driving over to join the other assembled members back at the rally site. We had another twelve fresh fields available for detecting on the Sunday in addition to the original twelve that had been available on the Saturday making a grand total of twenty four fields for detectorists to choose from.
Amongst the new land opened up there was a confirmed Roman area and a confirmed medieval area complete with visible ridge and furrow network.
The weather was slightly less sunny on the Sunday and we experienced a couple of short showers.
We were joined on Sunday by four Field Liaison Officers from the local area. These were a very friendly bunch and a pleasure to have around. As well as adding to the local historical knowledge of the area it was nice to have their expert knowledge on tap to add to the not inconsiderable talents of Waltonbasinman and ‘The Doc’.
The usual pre-rally meeting was enlivened by several presentations. Our recent Garret pro-pointer competition was won by Davtec and his prize of a brand new probe was presented to him by Reiver, who is a Moderator on DetectingScotland.com and who kindly donated the prize as a goodwill gesture between DetectingScotland.com and DetectingWales.com.
As part of the token hunt the previous day, Tafflaff (Rob) had hidden one of the tokens in full view in the branches of a tree. This was found by the eagle-eyed Rambo who won a special prize of Minelab hat which was presented to him by Rob.
The Minelab rucksack that had been one of the prizes in the token hunt the previous day had attracted a lot of attention. Seeing this, Laura and Nick from Detecnicks donated another Minelab rucksack that they had in stock to be auctioned at the event for charity. This was bought by Pipster for £35. The money will be donated to the RNLI.
Once the detectorists were let off the leash the fields to the south of the farm immediately started proving their Roman pedigree and Roman coins started to be turned up. 16:DD was one of the first with a nice Romulus and Remus coin, followed shortly after by a Roman unearthed by Bluebell. Rambo also found a very nice example.
Meanwhile our four Polish members had headed over to the medieval ‘ridge and furrow’ system and spent several hours there. This resulted in what many may consider the find of the weekend made by Mick from Inverness – a Bronze Age socketed axehead dating to around 800 – 1200 BC.
The ‘find of the weekend’ title was hotly disputed shortly afterwards when Paulywow turned up to show the FLOs a 6th century Saxon brooch and an ‘Iron Age’ strapend.
The FLOs were particularly excited about the brooch, and one of them said he’d only ever seen one similar example of the kind before.
MC Hammered, meanwhile, was adding to the Charles II shilling he’d found the day before with two more seventeenth century coins – possibly a William III and another Charles II.
At this point Willow Tree made his play for find of the rally by turning up a gold Viccy half sovereign.
Parkijohn and Tafflaff (Rob) both turned up William III shillings, Mrs Davi had a Silver St Christopher and Adesace had a brace of William bronzes.
Right at the end of the day Peterh turned up with a lovely silver denarius of Hadrian, a really nice coin.
Thanks to everyone who contributed to a great weekend. The atmosphere was terrific and everyone played their part in making it an event to remember.
Thanks especially to Tafflaff (Rob) who put a tremendous amount of work into organising and making sure the rally was a success. Let’s also not forget that 2-day rallies were his idea in the first place so well done Rob.
Thanks to Chef (Geoff) who also contributed greatly to the organisation of the rally, arranging and copying the maps, doing the reccy and liaising with the farmer as well as cooking all the food at the barbeque.
Legacy Hunter (Deb) also deserves a big thankyou. She helped out wherever she could all through the weekend.
Thanks to everyone else who chipped in and contributed to make it a wonderful weekend.
Geoff