Geoff, Rob and I took a trip to Rooksbridge the site of saturdays Rally this afternoon to meet the farmer, view the fields and sort out parking and the other numerous bits that go with organising a rally.
It took us just over an hour from Cyncoed in Cardiff to the actual farm - so use that as a guide, but you may need to allow for some Bank Holiday traffic.
The farm itself is easy to find and the farmer was more than welcoming. I can't stress how important it is to all members {especially newbies} to treat this farmer with respect and make sure you remove any litter and please fill your holes correctly. Its important to us as its a cracking location and to use his words "I have half a mile of land!" If this one is a success and he's happy with behaviour future rallies will be no problem.
He gave us a few titbits of local information which include that on his land he has a scheduled {keep off it} Roman shrine that the archaeologists excavated a number of years ago. That one of the stone bridges near where we are parking was built by monks from Glastonbury many years ago, and that they had some form of toll house there. The monks dug out channels to remove the water from the land as it used to be marsh land. As such the main road through is closely bordered by a canal. Be very careful driving along it as we encountered another car and they had to reverse towards a gate until there was room for two cars to just about pass. If anyone ends up in the water I will not be pulling you out!
The parking area is in a field we can detect on and is over a very small concrete bridge. When cars are coming over its pretty tight, so no one try and cross if a car is already coming over as you will end up taking a swim! this is all pretty obvious, but I thought it better to stress it now and then we all know where we stand.
We did a quick field walk and turned up a piece of Medieval pottery along with roof tiles and other bits. We then got our machines out and spent half hour only in each field. Within seconds of walking into the field I found a lovely George II coin in fantastic condition. The silt in the field is really kind to the coins. I also found a farthing and quite a few other bits. Then heading back to the car I got a perfect signal [you know the type} and there tightly compacted in the soil was a shining {never seen one come out this bright} hammered silver coin. No idea as to who it is - any ideas? I showed Rob who immediately swore at me
. We then both carefully opened the compacted clod to reveal the coin while he filmed. The soil was so tight on it that it left a perfect imprint on the soil - see Robs video to follow.
We then tried a few of the much larger fields where finds were a bit sparse but there was a nice bag seal found and a few other bits including a Tudor button. At the end of the day I found another item, which I will tell you about at a later date. Lets just say that it has given us encouragement for Saturday. More to follow on that later.
So all in all, only a hour and a half spent in the fields but we are happy they will produce more. The farm is huge and we have an enormous area to play with. Just be patient and I am sure some of us will be rewarded. As with all rallies there is no guarantee. We try our best to get good sites, so please bare this in mind.
Enjoy saturday
Neil
