Guide Index |
Introduction
I placed the finds gallery on the home page, so that site visitors come into contact with the finds before anything else. But finds mean little when they are seen out of their context, so on this page, I have prepared a short history of the landscape in which they were recovered.
The Landscape
The area is situated on a thick layer of glacial till or boulder-clay deposited over a geology of chalk. This till extends through Mid and South Norfolk and High Suffolk to form the East Anglian Boulder-Clay Plateau. Soils consist of medium to heavy clays and loamy clays, rich in broken flints. Natural drainage is poor, and the fields are bordered by land drainage systems. Local topography is characterised by dispersed settlement - with farms scattered along the edge of what were once commons, rather than forming tight nucleated villages. The main crops of the modern landscape are wheat, barley, and sugar beet, with some livestock pastures near the edge of the becks (natural drains).
Although the landscape today is very open and windswept, local place-names suggest the existence of substantial woodlands in the Late Saxon Period. The landscape is also situated in an area known as the Central Norfolk Watershed, where recorded archaeological finds (including metal detector finds) are often fewer than for neighbouring districts.
Prehistory 10,000 BC to AD 50
Previously recorded prehistoric finds have been especially far and few between. However, Wesley and his fieldwalking son, Paul, have recovered (and recorded) a late mesolithic microlith, several flake scatters and burnt flint clusters, two Neolithic flint axeheads, several flint scrapers, and Iron-age pottery sherds. Wesley has metal detected an Early Bronze Age chisel, and several fragments of Middle / Late Bronze Age axeheads, rapiers, etc.
The Iron Age has so far been represented by a light scatter of pottery sherds discovered during a field-walk, possibly by three clusters of 'pot-boilers' (burnt heat crazed flints - although these could date back to the Bronze Age or earlier), and finally by the Iceni Quarter Stater gold coin pictured to the left. This coin would have been manufactured and used right at the end of the Iron Age, around the time of the Roman invasion.
Roman AD 43 - AD 410
Previous finds in the landscape include a hoard of bronze Roman coins, found close to a medieval church dedicated to St Botolph. This saint is associated with bridges and gates. A road crosses a beck below the church at Stone Brigg. The road between Stone Brigg and the church is called Stonegate. The words brigg and gate are Late Saxon names for a bridge and a street respectively. A 17th century map shows that Stonegate originally continued past the church, right beside the Roman coin hoard. The crop mark of the extinct length of the road has been recorded onto the Norfolk SMR. The same survey map shows a large square patch of strip fields set around the church, alongside Stonegate. I would suggest that the possible existence of a 'stone bridge', and a 'stone street' during the Early Medieval, passing by a probable estate centre (the church and square of strips) at which a hoard has already been found, echoes a road system and landscape that originates before the medieval, and may even be of Roman date.
Until recently, Wesley had not retrieved a great deal of Roman finds from the ploughsoils, However his finds record for this period is now growing, and so far includes broken brooches, several bronze coins and one silver coin.
Saxon AD 400 - AD 1066
Early Saxon pottery is very frail, and many Pagan Saxon sites
have been recorded in East Anglia by metal detectorists. 
Wesley has found two fragments of brooches, a few buckles, and two
Early 8th century Saxon sceattas - early pennies brought
over from the continent. Despite place-name and historical evidence
that suggested that Norfolk was heavily settled by Vikings, there
was very little archaeological evidence until metal detectorists
began recording volumes of Viking-styled metal finds. Wesley's
finds have included a horse head-shaped bridle mount.
Medieval AD 1066 - AD 1540
Wesley has had his greatest successes with Medieval finds. He has recorded dozens of hammered silver coins a beautiful silver
annular brooch, and a small hoard
of Henry III silver hammered pennies and half-pennies. Just
imagine, this
small hoard
may have been the line between starvation and survival during a
famine year. The hoard was recovered from a slight high in a
meadow, close to the edge of a former common. Perhaps it was
originally hidden in a peasant's cottage, that once stood on that
spot? Maybe it was a peasant living in that cottage, or at a
neighbouring farmstead, who brought back the ampulae, a so-called priest's
purse, used by pilgrims for carrying back holy water from shrines.
The owner probably threw the holy water over a strip his holding,
hoping that it would bring God's blessing to his future harvest.
Other medieval finds include many mounts, buckles, pins, strapends,
and several seal matrixes, some
with the personal names of the medieval peasant-farmers who once
lived and worked on this landscape.
The landscape is disected down its middle by two parishes, and by three medieval manors (the boundaries of manors and parishes in this district are frequently different. a parish may include two or three manors, while a manor may be spread across the boundaries of two or three parishes).
Post Medieval and Modern AD 1540 - AD 2001
Post Medieval and modern finds are numerous, and include all the wierd and wonderful, from tudor buckles, to the silver foil of the farmer's packed lunch.
Wesley's finds provide evidence that this landscape, although always changing, has been used and lived in by groups of people for the past 10,000 years - Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Romano-British, Saxon/Viking, Medieval, Tudor / Post Medieval, through to the Modern day. Metal detecting should not be about making money, it should be about uncovering the past, touching the footsteps of our predecessors, and adding to the public archaeological record (however, if you are a collector interested in buying any of Wesley's finds, please contact him HERE.)