Anglo-Saxon Treasure

It was the middle of the Easter holidays in 2016 and I had been looking after my three daughters for eight days straight – to be honest, I was desperate to get out to regain my sanity.

- Chris Burnsall

My wife got home about 6 pm that evening, tea was ready for her, the kids were fed, the Deus was charged and I was gone! Decent land was getting a bit scarce by now and I had only two fields that were still left as stubble. I had been over these fields in the past and found them very quiet, with nothing of much interest or age, just a mild scattering of green waste which would occasionally break the silence in the headphones. But I was desperate to just get out for an hour or two, so I decided it would have to do.

I got to the fields after a 10-minute drive, ignored the first field as that had the greenest waste on it and parked in the second field. I set the Deus up with my own settings, using the 11” coil as the stubble was a bit much for the larger coil. The field is about 30 acres, and on a slope, so I started off along the bottom edge with the idea of doing a full lap around the field’s perimeter which I thought I would just about be able to fit in before it started to get dark in a couple of hours’ time.

After an hour, just over halfway around the field and with twenty-odd bits of green waste to show for my efforts, I hit a nice medieval buckle – for me that had made it worth the visit, even if nothing else were to turn up. I carried on searching across the top edge of the field – there was much less green waste up here which was a bonus, but the sun was setting and the light was fading so I decided it was time to head back down to the car.