Hard as Concrete

In March 2016 there were not many fields available for me to search.

- Gordon Bailey

In fact, from all the farms on which I have permission to detect, only two fields were still free from crops. There was one that I had searched continually for many years, but a field has only so much to offer although it still does throw up the occasional interesting find. The second field I had given a quick search in the past, but it had only produced some scrap lead, the odd musket ball, and some pieces of shrapnel. It was not high on my list for a return visit, but it was a bit of ‘Hobson’s choice’.

On my visit there was still old stubble and weeds that seem to have grown up in abundance. However, there were some areas that were not too bad an enabled me to get my coil close to the soil. As soon as one area of reasonable bare soil was searched I looked around for another clear part of the field.

After a while some odd fragments of buckles showed up and then some perfectly round musket shot that showed they had never been fired. They were six of them in total and each was exactly an ounce in weigh, but which firearm they were originally intended for I am not sure. Whether they fell out of a pouch or were moulded on site, and then lost, is again open to question. However, it did suggest that somebody may have camped or stayed in the area, so I though it worth concentrating in the immediate vicinity.