Always Another Surprise

Virtually all the fields Dix and I go to have been detected over for many years now, yet occasionally something will turn up for one or other of us – although recently we frequently come home with nothing.

- Gill Davies

One field which belongs to our contractor is mostly steep, being on the slopes of the North Downs and we pass the little paddock with the sheep on the way to it – it can be seen in the distance in the photo above. However, in the last few months we have had a few good and surprising finds.

The first was on an area which has been detected over very many times. When I dug the signal I thought I’d found just another old harness ring – it was covered in a thick accretion of chalk-like soil. However, after a long soak and removal of this, I saw that perhaps it was far older than I had thought. I searched the internet and the PAS Database and emailed the Kent FLO attaching photographs. I thought it just might be a type of Iron Age baldric ring, Figs.1a & b. This has now been recorded as KENT-6B6481, “A complete cast copper-alloy late Iron Age strap fitting, likely a baldric ring, which would have been used as part of a composite belt suite used to hang a sword scabbard.” What a super find.