Hello Folks!
My apologies, blog didn't seem to be working yesterday or last night! But it's back.
Thursday was the first day of the metal detecting survey which continued on in the same place on Friday. We have had a good body of volunteers coming to help out with 5 metal detectorists the first day and 9 on Friday, together with 3 recording assistants. Everyone has been working really hard and enjoying themselves at the same time. We have had heavy rain showers and been soaked a couple of times, but the sun has always come out to dry us off.
Currently we are in a large field beside the Waterwheel Cafe along the Etterick Valley. This is not far from the Salmon Viewing Centre and the weir, previously a fording point, which we believe may be the location where Leslie and his Cavalry crossed the river to outflank the Royalists. The aim here is the invesigate the extent of the battlefield and how far along the valley in reaches. We began at the field enclosure and working our way southwest in 3m transects in 40m spits. There was the potential that the enclosures had been used as ready made defences for those routed along the valley. After the first day not a sausage, except for some horseshoes, 18 - 19th century coins and an Army Catering Corps badge. The decision was then made to stretch out into the main area of the field with long corridors with the aim of hitting potential scatters of projectiles etc. Those who had detected on the field before had reported finding concentrations musket balls in this field, unfortunately we're not quite sure where this may have been.
On Friday we continued along the enclosure and set out the long corridor to the end of the field towards the cafe. The corridor began at 50m wide, but as nothing was coming up we decided to narrow this to 25m to ensure we could cover the area and reach the end of the field. This seemed to work well and we came across our first projectile. I should say, our first and only projectile of the last two days. We also recovered a small Fleur d'Lis made of lead. Another interesting find was a sherd of Roman Samian Ware! Very interesting. We also came up with a small assemblage of coins, buttons and buckles. Towards the end of the transect we began to get more modern finds such as 20p etc. Possibly due to a recent farm show!
It was a great day of survey and everyone was in great form, however the lack of battle-related finds is a little disappointing. The plan for Saturday is to finish in this field and to put in another 25m corridor at the other side of the field parallel to the previous one. The weather is supposed to be much more settled so fingers crossed!
I will post some photographs tonight!
All the best,
Tasha
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