April But No Showers

The forecast kept on about us getting some rain or showers, and we kept on hoping that at some stage soon they would be right, as we had just sown our spring oilseed rape

- Gill Davies

Although, like some of our autumn drilling, it had been sown slightly deeper than usual to pick up moisture further down and then rolled twice, it really needed a good soak to get it going. (The winter wheat and barley drilled in the autumn are growing well). However, it was good from a detecting point of view, as Easter remained dry and we arranged to meet with Dave on the field which had been an orchard until last autumn, and which we had been detecting over on several occasions.

The field is relatively close to an ancient site but we have yet to find anything older than medieval. On Easter Monday we found a few interesting bits and pieces - five of the finds Dix and I made were military (which pleased Dix of course), and the button he found was one not in his collection, being quite rare and still with all of its silver plate in situ (Fig.1). It is an officer’s coatee button of the West Kent Militia c.1794-1803. The ‘1’ shown in the centre represents the fact that in the 1794 ballot West Kent drew first place. This was lost in the 1803 ballot. The back mark is Firmin & Westall, Strand. (I would reiterate here that you should not dismiss all military buttons as uninteresting, as very rare ones have been known to fetch three figures; they are well worth some research.)