History is in the lead

Since I started my new journey back into this amazing hobby I have been finding all sorts of things of the metal persuasion. A lot of the time I find quite a bit of rubbish, nails, tin cans, ring pulls, the list goes on but that makes it all the more special when I do find something good. Sometimes though it is hard to decipher what is rubbish and what isn’t until you have taken it home, cleaned it up and had a good look.

In the fields I’m lucky enough to detect on I started to find quite a lot of lead, just small molten lumps of lead. I mostly discard these items as rubbish but it did make me wonder why I was finding so much of it. Pretty soon it started to become clear.

Every now and then I was finding little lead discs, the ones I have found so far are varying sizes and at first I didn’t think anything of them, I almost disregarded them as rubbish too, it’s a good thing I didn’t. On the most part the ones I have been finding are quite small and nondescript but then I found one which was a little bit bigger and as it turns out in terms of history, a little more special.

I put it in my finds bag and didn’t think anything of it, that was until I got home and cleaned it up. As lead is a soft metal you do have to be quite careful with how you clean it, I usually just use some distilled water and gently rub off the dirt with my fingers. In doing this it soon became clear that this piece of lead had markings on it, it was a cloth seal.

Quite excited by this I posted the find on my metal detecting social media group and a lot of members soon confirmed it was indeed a lead cloth seal. It turns out that lead seals were used throughout the centuries as a means of identification, regulation and quality control for various tradable items such as textiles etc.

One of the members pointed me to a specific social media group dedicated to identifying lead bag seals which is where I was lucky enough to find out the history behind this particular seal.

The coat of arms that can be seen on this cloth seal is of the French town Castres which is located in the Occitanie region of France. The town was known to have traded in various goods including textiles. On the reverse you can see the Fleur de Lys and on the right of that is the number 76, this gives a precise date for this seal which is 1676!

So a little pice of lead that I almost threw away is actually an insightful piece of history of the land I’m detecting on, and on the trades and businesses that have gone on here over the years. This and a few more of the lead seals I have found have been documented on the bagseals.org website, the curator of which was very helpful in identifying and providing this historical insight.

But these aren’t the only lead items that I have been finding. I’ve also found what could be a farmers token and musket balls (shown below), both of which I’ve not been able to find much information on as yet. I will persevere on researching the farmers token and if I do find anything out about it I will be sure to share it in a future post!

As I have said before and it’s something I firmly believe, the treasure isn’t always in the value of things but in the connection with the history of our ancestors!

Detecting – what a hobby!

Back in 2004 I bought a fairly cheap metal detector, I took it out a few times but never really connected with it or the hobby so it was left to gather dust in the garage. Then years later I happened to be flicking through the TV channels and came across this little gem of a comedy called ‘Detectorists’.

I completely fell in love with the show and this subsequently reignited my interest in detecting. This time round I decided to do things properly, I did a lot of research into various detectors, the pros and cons, read loads of reviews and blogs into all aspects of detecting so that I would be fully prepared and ready to enjoy this hobby.

I think most detectorists would agree that choosing your first detector is a bit of a minefield, but if you take enough time to do the research you will find something that suits you and your budget. I went with the Minelab Equinox 600 as it ticked a lot of boxes and so far has been a brilliant machine which has given me good results and hours of pleasure.

But it’s not just about having the detector, there are a whole load of accessories that make detecting so much easier and enjoyable. One accessory above all others that I personally couldn’t be without is the pinpointer. This little gadget makes finding the targets your detector picks up so much easier, it’s like having a trained sniffer dog that tells you exactly where the metal is! More often than not if I hit on a fairly shallow target I will stick the pointer in the ground to exactly locate the find so my holes are fairly small, neat and tidy. There are lots of other important accessories you will need like digging tools, finds bags, clothing etc and again there is a lot of choice in all these categories, so like with the detector it’s what best suits you and your budget.

The biggest stumbling block I think you will come across in the world of detecting is finding that first permission! To detect on private land you need the permission of the landowner and I guess this is where I lucked in. I knew that years ago, way before I was born in fact that my family used to be orchard farmers and did have quite a bit of land in and around my local area in Hertfordshire. As far as I knew this had all been sold off for housing but luckily for me it turns out the family kept a couple of fields so I had my first, and up until this point, only permission.

I only started detecting again in September 2020 and quite obviously some of this time has been hampered by covid restrictions but so far I think I have done pretty well on the finds front. There hasn’t been a hoard of Roman or Saxon coins as yet but it turns out there has been quite a bit of activity in these fields over the years which you will see in this and future posts. My favourite find so far is what is believed to be part of a Saxon Cruciform Brooch (shown above) which has been dated by the curator of my local museum between 420 – 500.

I have recently joined a metal detecting group on social media. Generally the people on there have been really friendly and willing to help out with most questions I have had, they have also been an invaluable resource in providing info and identifications on my finds. I have also joined The National Council for Metal Detecting, another great resource for all kinds of information you will need to help you on your way.

I’ve not taken up this hobby with the sole purpose of finding a hoard of lost treasure (although it would be nice), I think the treasure is in connecting with the countryside, connecting with the history in objects that have been lost or left behind and very personally for me connecting with my own family’s past.

In detecting I have found a hobby that I truly love and one I know will keep me (and the dog) occupied and happy for years to come. Through this blog you can follow my detecting journey and the finds that will hopefully reveal the history of times gone by in my local area!