DetectingWales.com

Last year I contacted a farmer about a possible rally at his farm for DW. My reason for approaching this particular farm was it is the supposed site of a battle. Some sources say it was a medieval battle and some say it was a dark age battle site. The only evidence available was place name evidence not from my self but from acknowledged experts in the field. Who have put two and two together. Being totally honest with you I will say I have been there once and found a lot of farm bits and pieces and not a lot else. In the mean time the farmer has died so I let it lie while the farmers family sorted the bereavement out. Yesterday I saw the farmers wife in Hay and had a chat with her and she said It was ok to go up there again and thanks for being understanding. So a landowner with a farm for a rally and the supposed site of a battle ( most finds of weapons would be Iron ) which we usually avoid like the plague and no real evidence that it is a battle site. What do you think and bear in mind it is upland pasture not ploughed and is near Hay on Wye and has no other real history. The farm is your typical Welsh hill farm 17th / 18th century in origin. If I am to approach Rob about this please let me know what you think and discuss this openly. What I would not want is for everyone to say yes go for it only to Lynch Rob for paying your money for a s**t day out and remember it has been detected once.

hi Paul

I think that this would be an absolute challenge for all detectorists to identify once and for all, whether it is indeed a battle site. That indeed would have to be the remit.

It would mean that all iron would have to be dug and examined.

i'd be up for this piece of work.

I personally would be up for this , I mean - in the rally description it can be explained that it is an unknown entity and that the Rally sign up would be on the  proviso's that all finds including iron go through an on site F.L.O , and that iron signals should be dug as well . This will be a rally for genuine Metal Detectives rather than Metal detectorists

 I am more than wiling to attend , any challenge is a good challenge,

I often worry that iron finds of historical inportance are missed , i tend to keep ant unusual shape iron to examine closely

My latest piece almost got thrown away on the spot , until i turned it in my hand , and i realised it moulded into the shape of my hand and fingers , could it be a dagger handle or a bayonet , i don't honestly know, but after a little cleaning , i am begining to see  what looks like a blade running right through the handle, .

A little more careful cleaning may reveal more , i am thinking of having the FLO take a look at it, but there again it could just be a lump of scrap

Time will tell

OK, I'm taking the bate.LOL
As a lot of you know I have my own research group which is itself hunting for two battlefields and during the course of these searches I have attended 12 detecting surveys and so feel that I must highlight  one or two important points.

Firstly, battlefields are one of, if not the most delicate of archaeological site, the reason for this is that where most sites exist in time and place, battlefields only exist in place and not in time. This means that each and every find must be logged (GPS) and recorded otherwise the "story" of the battle will be lost. To achieve this each person has to have a gridded square which they must not detect outside of.
From any battle pre 16thC the major clue and finds are going to be arrow heads, depending on soil and drainage of the site, after 1000 years these can be anywhere from pristine to something resembling a fat rusty nail.

Each person has to have a similar depth of detection otherwise (remember "place) gaps will be misinterpreted.
One good thing is that if it is upland pasture then the depth of soil should not be as great due to weathering.

I would be up for it but if it is not carried out properly then the site will be destroyed for ever.

I would love to have a bash on this land, I would be in

Just one further suggestion would be that if after a days detection the evidence was there to point to it being a battlefield then the Battlefields trust be contacted and a copy of all find records handed over to them. They are the experts at this form of archaeology.

They do have an interesting website should anyone wish to have a peek.
http://www.battlefieldstrust.com/ (http://www.battlefieldstrust.com/)

And before anyone says "yes" please realise what is involved, every signal no matter how slight has to be dug and to give you a feel of what this entails, next time you are out detecting, mark yourself out a square 5mx5m, now you detect a row from top to bottom approximately 1m wide. At the end of this row you turn and detect the same row in the opposite direction, when you have reached the top of your 5th row, you turn 90* and detect in the same manner from right to left so at the end you have covered each inch of ground from 4 directions.

On average you will have now dug 30 to 40 signals in 25 square meters, each of which has to be bagged tagged and GPS'ed. 
Oh and that's about a quarter of an actual days survey for one person.
 Still want to go???? lol

 I do that anyhow Geoff,  on some Sundays on a project i was asked to help on being the only detectorist too, 

 i detect 2 ways slowly and stick a marker at each signal, every one gets recorded,  then go back and dig them up,  again everything being recorded and  G.P.S.d. and the square is used too,

 i see it as another way of giving things back and improving relationships with the other side, and improving how they see us,  we are not all the same,.

 but it is nice though to get out on my own sites now and then so i can dig and pocket anything i find,  lol
Alan

Being as you have described how I work when I am not charging across a field on a rally, and the fact that I have a rather extensive collection of horseshoes and other unidentified iron, not forgetting I have a CScope which loves iron, you are on Chef.

Battle sites are notoriously difficult to place because descriptions of them are often based on objects in the landscape which have different names and interpretations, not to mention land changing hands and being remodelled for the needs of the time. I have spent fruitless hours looking at battle and place names, looking for clues. The ones I really hate are the ones that the antiquarians had a go at, and some manipulated information to suit their own needs. I have found bits of roman armour and things like hobnails which show that the romans were there, but no human remains with slash marks or arrow heads poking out of them. Now thats something to look forward to. A sword with a bejewelled glove around the handle or collections of spearpoints with silver inscriptions like "please return to sender" on them would be nice.

Eric (Meatslicer)

A really good example of such recording, was set by detectorists working in partnership with the naseby trust. They were asked to plot the scatter of musket balls as they found them.

i attach a map for all to see. the red markings indicate the location of the lead shot. it also shows a clear pathway of the defeated army and the various skirmishes along the way as the remnants made their way towards leicester.

It does give a very clear indication as to how the battle developed and how the rout /chase occured.

Geoffs advice is spot on.  the issue must now be, who will over see such a dig, who will mark out the search grids 10m by 10m? the format etc etc.

a very exciting project, which - if handled correctly, will bring immense prestige to DW and the participating detectorists.

i for one would be up for this kind of rally, and it would definatly be a feather in the cap of DW if there is actually a battlefield there, and maybe the Archies would actually owe us one (highly doubt it but wishing)
If this was carried out correctly this could be the best possible publicity our hobby needs at this time,
I dont know the organisations that think there's a battlefield there but maybe they could be consulted or invited along to.
the more organisations that we can get on board as "pro metal detecting" the better.
so yes i say lets do it

this would be a great thing for DW and all true metal detectorists as Chef as said should be done in an organized way, who ever goes will have to dig any signal! and all should have a certain amount of land to grid to cover ........GREAT IDEA ;)

GREAT IDEA GUYS..COUNT ME IN..

Geoff , what would we need to go about this , i assume me would need something like plastic tent pegs, and marker tape to grid out the areas, i could certainly help out with tape, and some pegs.

also plastic bags and labels

I would be up for it Paul - certainly be a different type of metal detecting to what we are all used to. I think as echoed by a few others though that to have any credibility it would need to be well thought out.

I can virtually guarantee that Treasure Hunting magazine would take an interest in covering how we get on. Its completely different to anything they have covered in my extensive back catologue of their magazine. Once again it would illustrate responsible detecting. I will follow this thread with interest - great idea

Neil

Definitely sounds good to me. At NARC, we've got plenty experience digging through spoil heaps looking for hob-nails.

You'll need to think about helping everyone to take their machines off discriminate though. I'm sure there'll be plenty who don't  know how to do it.

...Count me in

Thankyou Chef for highlighting points I would like to bring up. My first thought is now this has been suggested in open forum the feeling that someone else might jump in first which is why I have already moved to ask the local archaeology  unit for their thoughts and will be contacting the FLO tomorrow ( WEDS ). The landowner is OK. But then things like if it turns out to be a battle site would we need police or specialists on site or standby if bodies are found and would we have to pay for their time. Chef would it be possible to obtain a list of all parties who you think should be involved as you have experience of this. I would gladly organise this but will also gladly listen to some of you more experienced people on different aspects of putting a project together. If we are going to do this lets do it right and give Detecting  and more especially Detecting Wales a good name. I will update you all periodically on progress but hope to achieve this sooner rather than later. Thanks for the interest and encouragement all and I feel it is a really good way of giving Detecting a good name and as Alan ( Handyman ) has shown with his Naseby map what a valuable tool a detector can be with right minded people.

Yip well done Paul on that move. So far every good idea thats been banded around on here has appeared on another site....lol  " You know the saying ..Standing on the shoulders of giants!"... ;)

No problem Paul, I'm here if needed. Because you can't actually name the battle or say from which period then I don't think we need any specialists of any type because it is at present only "local legend".
The attendance of an FLO isn't really needed as it is more of a job for the county Archaeologist, but if one wanted to attend then that may speed up authentication of a battle site, should you be lucky enough to find something.
The chances of finding bodies is I would say Pretty slim, If you think that from the Battle of Towton (28,000 killed) the first bodies weren't recovered until 1996. So the police could be called if and when, you just tape it off and get on with something else.
It may also take two visits to survey properly, the technique I described previously is when working on a Battle site, but first you need to find the battle site. So I would suggest first a day long visit by a dozen or so to try and find it then when you have made three finds of arrowheads or the like, stop and plan the full survey.
After locating the battlefield then the next step is to find its orientation, finding a line of arrows reduces this to just Two directions and then it's just a matter of locating the other sides battle line.
This in itself can date from which period the battle is from, e.g. the Saxon bow would fire up to 150 yards whereas the medieval longbow could fire up to 300 yards.

Found out a bit more today and the site is definitely a medieval battle site. Two different contemporary sources give a death toll of over 3000 people and both sources name the River as well. A site visit today to get a general overview revealed unrecorded earth works of unknown date that are not recorded which was a plus. Also studied some old maps and the SMR and each end of the River valley is guarded by a Motte and Bailey Castle besides the main castle site in the village. Three castles in the same valley just a small distance apart and when you see the area you will understand the valley is the only route through the area without being in wet smelly boggy ground and I think it also limits  the area where a battle could take place. 10,000 people are known to have been involved and that many people would be limited in manoeuvrability. Also realised today that there are at least 15 barrows along the sides of the valley that are recorded and I think we would find Bronze Age metalwork in the area as well. Near the one Castle site are two very large obviously man made mounds. Actually much bigger than the castle. Local tradition tells that they are the burials of Romans caught on manoeuvres by Caractacus. There is no other evidence other than local hearsay but the Romans are known to have been mining on the hill above. I do wonder if this is perhaps the burial site for the dead at the battle and through the mists of time these have become confused with each other. Anyway I will keep you posted.

Very interesting Paul , this just whets the appetite even more , lets hope this project can get organised properly, as i said if i can help in obtaining items required , just let me know and i'll get on with it ,,,, i'll organise some road pins ,and cordone tape as they might come in handy anyway.
                                                                                                                Mike

I enjoy doing surveys ..Please count me in

Paul, count me in on this mate.