Ros Records Finds at a Weekend Wanderers Rally!
Our FLO in the Field, Ros Records Finds at a Weekend Wanderers Rally!
It was a cold windy Sunday in March. It was so cold, some kind soul loaned me his car rug, to put round my knees and so windy the gazebo shelter blew down! I turned up to record any finds that the Weekend Wanderers might make. There were about 100 cars in the field as I arrived and I did 48 records that day & 42 more the following Sunday. The Weekend Wanderers know I don't usually record objects that are less than 300 years old, so many will not bother to show me. They know more about Georgian buttons and Victorian pennies than I do anyway! However, this time, I was shown a little heart-shaped locket which was a royal souvenir commemorating the wedding of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra.
Edward VII was the son of Queen Victoria. He was called Albert originally, but changed his name upon succeeding to the throne when his mother died in 1901. His queen was the daughter of the Danish king Christian IX. Edward and Alexandra had 5 children. King Edward VII died in 1910, aged 68.
Just to show the variety of finds that people make while detecting, on the same Sunday I was also shown a lovely little object that was much older. This one was a curious looking piece (see picture in the gallery). It was a Viking age stirrup strap mount, but one that was very different from any I’d seen before because it was a pear shaped mount with two attachment or strap loops at the top. I looked at the design and I could see what it probably was but there were differences from the ones I had seen previously seen and as it tuned out it was an unusual type.
As I am down at the entrance, the detecting is sometimes being done in fields a long way from where I am, so I don't see the actual finding. They come back
To their cars for coffee or lunch and show me what they have found. I
get them to mark the find spots of the objects that are old enough, on
The large scale map I have. They are interested to see how the
distributions are building up in case there are any interesting hotspots. The mount and the other objects were from the same field but spread across it.
