Any Old Iron

While looking at detecting Facebook sites and forums I’m always struck by the constant thread of disappointment in the digging of iron signals and posts on “How can I reject iron?” Have you ever stopped to think that some of those iron objects you are passing over might actually hold a great deal of archaeological and historical importance?

- Duncan Hillyard

Iron objects while usually rusty and not particularly pretty, hold the same significance as any other object. The real importance of these items lies in their historical value and the window they open into our past. Indeed, gold and silver items are wonderful to find but do not necessarily hold any more importance than a rusted piece of iron. The historical evidence that they provide may now well outweigh their financial one.

Recently while on a Beds Historical Search Society club dig the opportunity arose for me to make just such a discovery. Late in December 2014 while scratching around for detectable sites we were offered a small pasture field in Hockliffe, Bedfordshire. The field in question was in an area that was steeped in history and our club had made many interesting finds over the years in the surrounding fields. This particular field was rectangular in shape and had a fairly steep slope from which you have an impressive view of the River Ouzel valley and the surrounding countryside.

Working my way towards the top of the slope I had a few signals, but in digging them I realised that there was a layer of chalk very close to the surface and that this would stop any finds from sinking deeper. Near to the crest of the slope I had a signal that I thought was certainly iron but I still decided to investigate. Perhaps it was intuition or maybe just experience. Removing the top soil to a depth of about 15cm I realised that whatever it was, it was in the natural looking chalk and must have been deposited on purpose.

Digging down to a further depth of approximately 25cm I could clearly see that the object was iron. Digging around the item for several minutes I could now see it was circular in shape with a spike pointing upwards. Cleaning the dirt away, my immediate thought was that it was a shield boss (Fig.1).