DetectingWales.com

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  ;D ;D ) 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

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What and who's is

Circular mount , found by Peter the Doc, Id'd by Peter the doc. :D

Paul WBM has now sent me pics of his finds and a paragraph off the man himself.

Another successful Dw 2 day event ;0)
well done everyone  !

Leighton you really have got to do something about your Musky Balls lol
Are them shorts to tight ??? lol heheheheh  :P

What a great report, Geoff! I had a rollocking good time. Can't wait to do it again!

 ;D  ;D  ;D

Great Report and a great weekend. Thanks for eveything weekend to remember ;D ;D ;D

Great report Geoff and Rob. What I great time we all had. Thanks again to all the team for all your hard work and organisation.

One of the "What and Who" item's (the one on its own) is mine. This is what it is:

http://www.ukdfd.co.uk/ukdfddata/showrecords.php?product=22268&cat=169 (http://www.ukdfd.co.uk/ukdfddata/showrecords.php?product=22268&cat=169)

Thanks for the great rally from all the Polish boys at club "Thesaurus" :) We've had a great time and will definitely do it again!

Thanks for a great weekend to everyone & Rob (Tafflaff) great guy & Debs for the cakes lovely job.Thanks once again.

Great report Geoff...and well done everyone on their finds.
Great meeting new faces again..Chatted to Padfoot, 7 Adesace again, meet the Wendover wanderer and Mr & mrs Pritzstick?? Hope you enjoyed it and got home safe


Only attended the Saturday rally and found a George iv 1821 farthing and a late saxon/early Norman bridle piece  C11th (this confirmed by UKDFD)......but our own PeterH was spot on with his own thoughts.

Well done...loved all the photos

Farmer Phil 8) ;)

Well done Admin Geoff great write up and well done remembering who got what with the photos taff bet that was a long job downloading all them .
Really really enjoyed the weekend but I was knackere last night lol.
Cant wait for the next one.
Well done to Chef Geoff for cooking all the BBQ which was a mammoth task and also for researching the area.
well done to admin tafflaff anf chef for organising it another well organised well run rally.
glad no-one had food poisoning from my welsh cakes, victoria sponge cake, scones or sausage rolls glad they were all ate as i hate wasting food.
Padfoot did you enjoy the welsh cakes were they as good as you remembered them?
Great to see everyone again and for giving me all your lovely money lol
debs

first off can i just say well done to the team great day,the boys who came from bucks have said they had a great day(IVE TOLD WENDOVER TOWAER A TIE AT THE NEXT RALLY) my better half is now  speaking so its all quiet on the western front, nice to chat to so many members and put names to faces and i must say a big thanks to richard 16dd for the offer of a a detecter to borrow when my started to play up..thanks richard.. again well done we had a good day .. cheers paul

Excellent write up Geoff, :) I really enjoyed myself, some lovely finds came up, well done to all. :) The axehead is a fantastic find! I was detecting the same area as the Polish guys Sunday morning, Well done to the finder :) Looking forward to the next weekender, thanks to everyone who put in all the effort to make it such a great weekend. :)

here was my find of the weekend .. a nice trapezoidal 220g, or 7oz suspension weight with a number 6 on it .... or is it a 9????

thanks to all for a great w/e and in particular to the organisers and helpers who worked really hard to make this such a success .. hope u enjoyed the beers!!

cheers
alan

Geoff, Rob, geoff chef, Debs and every one there thank you for a fantastic weekend !
everything was run professionally and just goes to show what Detecting Wales stands for and how lucky we are to be involved in a site like this.
everyone done D.W credit i believe...cant wait til next time.
take care all

yes great write up geoff.
great weekend loved every minute of it.thanks everyone for giveing my brother and reiver a great wellcome cheers all.
thanks to geoff (admin) tafflaff chef geoff for the hard work you put into this great weekend.cheers boys.
cant wait for the next ralley.
chefs bbq was great welldone geoff.everyone knows how hard you worked to get it right and you did my friend.
had a good laugh with beachboy (viv) zorro  and his butty.telling them how i got my nickname roman (ray)
please dont tell anyone boys.lol.
met laura +nick detecnics great people.
thank you all
and see you all soon.
ray

ray your secret is safe with me mate.....no one would believe me if i told them anyway  ;) ;) ;) ;) ;)

wicked report, and what a fab two days, thanks to rob debs and the rest of the girls and guys, cant what for the next one, to spend time with some really nice people.cheeeeeeeeeeeerrrsss ;)

so glad the weekend rally went well,i only wish i could have made it  :'( but next time maybe ;) great report Geoff great photos as well some great finds ,glad it went off a great success ;)

hi folks i would like to thank you all so much for a fantastic days detecting on day 1 saturdays spring rally you gave me and my friend harry a great warm welcombe it was nice to meet you lovely people and i look foward to seeing you all again in the near future best wishes the wendover wanderer jim

sounds like a good time was had by all, couldnot make that one up the smoke visiting parents  well done to all of you that went, heard rumors of some bad headaches, on sunday morning   mickycoin  mick ;D ;D

casa kev,wish you could have been there just to socialise on saturday night really great.viv

thanks Viv i would have loved to been there my friend ,but as you know coz of my  gammy bad left leg  ;D................. thanks for missing me m8 ;)...........P.S. physio going ok........ i will return  ;)

I found all my finds in field number 9 which had a lot of unrecorded earth works in. Except for Sunday morning when I spent an hour and a half in the field in front of the house. My instincts kept saying go back to number 9 and look again. Which I did and I had a great Week end as you can see. The whole weekend was absolutely brilliant so thanks to all involved especially Chef (cracking food), Geoff and Tafflaff Rob for organising and Debs for tireless enthusiasm and help. Great cakes to Deb. Thanks to Melonhead Mark for breakfast on Sunday and many people during the weekend and had some really good chats with Silky, Ozzyhead Steve (thanks for the programme), Laura from Detecnics amongst many. Again thanks all and LEIGHTON a BIG thanks for you know what. Big Thanks again To Tafflaff Rob for the share of the tent and the entertainment. Wish We could do it all again next week.

Why cant we do it again next week I am up for it I really enjoyed it when can we do it again lol
debs

Glad you enjoyed the cakes and no one had food poisoning lol
debs

Congratulations  !! on anoither well organised rally  8) nice to see everyone  having a good time ;) will try and make one  ??? in the near future  good hunting all ;)

debs,i never knew you had cakes and i was (starving ::) ::)) i think leighton must have hidden them  :o :o.viv

No problem, Paul.

 :)

Excellent report , and some terrific finds, looks like you all had a very productive time , I haven't been out for three weeks , I'm going insane !

God what a great weekend. Great finds, great people, to much land for one trip as well Rob. Would love to go back some time. Chefs spread was mesmerising. I enjoyed myself so much. Just a huge thanks to you all.

Congratulations on another excellent DW event , i wish i could have been there , the site looked great , wish i could have stopped and chatted longer, at least i know next time i'll be fed well thanks to Geoff, my BBQ has only done the usual burgers and sausages up until now , i hear the Master Chef was dishing out gourmet meals, i'm jealous

Well done to all who found something , and to those who didn't better luck next time , but sometimes these rallies are more about getting together and socialising, finds being a bonus

i won't miss the next one. fingers crossed xxxxxxxxx

Thanks to you Mike for lending us your gas barbeque. The evening wouldn't have been such a success without it.

Geoff

Thanks everyone for a great weekend,only managed a roman grot myself besides all the junk,but thats just how this hobby works.
Chef,that curry was awesome and norman enjoyed the burgers too!
Great campsite-would definately stay there again.
Thanks for all the great organisation and will be looking forward to the next DW weekender!
Cheers.

Is anyone still shattered after the weekend ?  I am!!  ;D

Havent been on that much since Sunday so thought I'd say thanks to everyone.

I'm so pleased the rally went well and we had a cracking spread of finds from all eras. Well done all those winners of the token hunt prize, especially Debs who seemed to win and help both with extreme efficiency  ;D  

I'd like to say a huge thankyou to Admin Geoff,  Chef Geoff  and Roman Ray for the mammoth amount of effort they put in whilst we organised this and to everyone that contributed to the BBQ , be it with food, drink or infectious laughter  :D

Well done to those that travelled huge distances to get to this event  especially MCHammered, Steppyjock and the Polish guys (Thesaurus) Scotland 3 - wales 1
 I make it lads.

Everyone that attended,  made this Rally an event to remember and you all help to Make DW the number one detecting site in Wales.

Now if only we had another " 2 dayer on the cards in say...September....  ::)

Put my name down for September .......think you may have planted a seed here Rob   ;D ;D

Some more pics from the weekend at Bristol. Think this was inlay for a walking stick or riding crop.

Found two farthings. One Viccy and one George V

Clearly someone had a dislike for Queen Victoria.

Here we see Peter H (THE DOC) and Geoff (Admin) deep in discussion. You put the kettle on Peter, no you put it on Geoff.  ;D ;D ;D   Mean while Richard 16DD stands guard.

Tafflaff you can definately put me. ozzyheadsteve and leighton down for a 2 dayer in september
debs

Once again ZILCH for me, except for the blank Georgian copper, but a very well run
weekend. Abig cheers to all involved in organising this event. thank you all.
Tafflaff, what,s happened to the dig at Lower Claverham in 2 weeks time???
Hoping to read about it very soon, so I can get my mate and my names down.
                                                                          Ta, Digger

Well the Hallmarks tell me this Silver was made in London. is Sterling .925 by De La Rue Ltd in 1919. Found in the North Somerset Lowlands and dates to the same time as the Compact Tin I found and the SIxpence and Farthing of George V I found dated 1920 and 1921 about a Metre apart. A moment in time you might say.

Well done to everyone - some lovely finds came up. A cracking axe head as well - I believe that makes 4 Bronze Age tools found on DW rallies to date!

Nice finds Paul - lovely to find silver artefacts.

Gutted I couldn't be there - on my way home soon.

Over and out

Your DW representative in Asia
Neil

Did you get us any rally sites while you were there Neil.  ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

There would be a potentially an outstanding DW Rally in Angkor Wat (where Tomb Raider was filmed) in Cambodia, but I get the feeling it would be severely frowned upon and we would probably all go missing if we detected there! ::)

I did manage to do some eyes only beach/snorkle detecting in Bali and found some Chinese silver coins (they smell right with silver foil) - photos to follow. ;D

Neil

Thanks for a great weekend to everyone !!!

well i was planning on going to the weekend wanderers rally in September but if DW are going to have a 2 dayer same time i know where i'd rather go.......( i might get the chance to try Benny's home brew this time  ;) )

maybe if DW are holding a 2 dayer maybe they should hold it on a different weekend than the weekend wanderers rally just a thought
debs

Is there a DW rally planned for Sepember ??

RARE are Running  a bus trip to WWW rally at West Hanney 11-12 September
We went last Year and had a great time. (The rally where Eileen was found, the Saxon Princess)
Not many Rallys you can get a 99 with chocolate bits or a traler full on Ices water in the middle of nowhere  lol

If anyones interested in coming with us im sure we can find a few spare seats

all the best
Phil

And MLO are having their Corfe rally on the weekend of the 16-19th September.

Ive never been to the MLO,s Corfe castle rally   i wonder if any RARE members would like a coach trip there

It wouldnt be problem having two in one  month as long as theres interest
We have had 3 in just over a month, in the past

The problem is Phil it's not an open rally, it's only open to Platinum members of MLO

ooohhh right no good them !

Im a forum member of MLOTV and Minelab owners but never felt the need to give Garry Brun any money lol

They always have a good write up on the forum,

just like to say a big thankyou to rob chef debs and everybody involved in the running of the bristol rally ,had a lotta laughs met some great people and i cant wait to do it again . thanks again  :) 8) 8)