Searching Season

For all of our Projects the land made available for searching, and indeed when it can be searched, must be specifically agreed with landowner and farmer.  This needs to be in sympathy with the state of cultivation, grazing or indeed any other potential limitations such as the shooting season.

Extracting finds

To field-walk properly the land has to be bare earth.  In this condition the work is best carried out after the weather has had the chance to wash any surface artefacts clean.  Under these circumstances it is a simple case of spotting and lifting the object from the surface and popping it in a finds bag along with its 10 figure National Grid reference.  In practice field-walking is normally carried out simultaneously with metal detecting.

Metal detectors, depending on the equipment and condition of the soil, will detect a coin-sized object to a depth of around 5 to 10 inches. Almost invariably therefore the metallic objects retrieved are all recovered from within a ploughs depth.

Once the object has been extracted the Pastfinders are meticulous about backfilling all holes to restore the surface.  In situations where we have been given express permission to search a young crop, this includes replanting it in order to make good.

When searching pasture a find is located and three sides of a divot are cut with a small spade and the plug of earth folded back.  The artefact is recovered and the soil and divot restored and trodden down to make an invisible mend. The process is shown in the adjacent photo.  

Scrap material recovered is disposed of  appropriately which in association with the careful removal techniques above ensure the land is left in the condition in which we found it.

Recovery Service

The Sussex Pastfinders also offer a free of charge recovery service and have in the past recovered items of farming equipment and lost keys for landowners, farmers and their staff.