It was the summer School holidays of 2017 and I’d taken number one son to see my mother in Devon, after a day or two of trips to the beach son is getting boarded and mother who is normally on her own need some quiet time so I decided to ring a mate down there who I knew had some land on a old airfield to see if we could detect there.
When I eventually caught up with friend he says no problem but you might be better of on a farm I’ve bought, I’m interested now! Later that day I picked him up from where he was working and he took us to see said farm and tells us about the farm history, I couldn’t believe my luck, it had belonged to Hartland Abbey and had a significant historical site on it, son who was extremely into detecting at the time is busting with enthusiasm and I’m not far behind him.
The next day I made breakfast for everyone and we got set of for my mates farm, we arrived at about 11am and it was already 28 degrees with no breeze at all but we weren’t about to let heat exhaustion stop us. I had identified some old footpaths in a gently sloping field that was going to be our first outing. It wasn’t long before we had a good signal that turned out to be a Victorian penny, the ground was like iron having been baked by the sun for weeks. We continued up and down the field for hours and found quite a few coins the best of which was a silver sixpence. After about 4 hours son says he’s had enough and can’t take the heat anymore and I was pleased at his decision as I couldn’t be the first to give in but I had wanted too after about 2 hours. So I said we would detect our way back up the field to the gate and go and get a ice cream, son thinks this is a good idea. After about 10 minutes and a few trash targets we approached the gate to escape and son says detect that bit to the right of the gate get one more signal then we’re off, I agreed and didn’t really want to look for one more but you can’t disappoint a 8 year old.
After about 2 minutes I got the last signal of the day and it was the best signal of the day so in my mind it could only be a mootube, after 2 or 3 minutes of not too carefully hacking away at the ground I eventually dug out a plug and true to form son dives in the hole with the pinpointer to claim the find but the ground is so hard he can’t get to it with the trowel. Without much enthusiasm I managed to dig in a bit deeper telling him it’s only a mootube, as I removed the soil he pounced on what was in the hole so I couldn’t see it and laughed as he snatched it from the ground and turned away so i had no idea what it was, he then said we have got one at last, I said got what, he shouts a hammered coin. I didn’t believe him and started filling in the hole so we could go, then he turned round and said which hand is it in, my patience is running out now so I put on my best stern voice and demanded he handed over the mootube/hammered so I could identity it for my self. The coin below is what he reluctantly passed me, just over 4 hours of misery in the baking sun with ground like concrete, worth every minute!
