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Published: March 30th 2022
Walking has become a bit of a bore. It was fine when I started walking around our Derbyshire village home as it was a novelty. I remember enjoying walking as a change to swimming . Investigating the village I had lived in and never entirely walked around . Cul de sacs, long lanes, the ponds, the lakes and the countryside . There were places I had never ventured down and I remember apart from my aching feet loving looking into gardens, fields , at gates and follies . Home made signs thanking the NHS. Signs saying please smile . Scarecrows in the form of nurses, utility workers and the local milkman . None of that here . A few weeks of walking and I had covered virtually every nook and cranny. I had peered into all the gardens. I had found all the woodland paths and riverside walks . I was glad in a way to get back to swimming four days a week. This meant I only had to walk for the remaining two or three days depending on how I felt on the day.
Sunday was generally the day I walked up the busy main road . Sunday
was the day when the main road was going to be relatively quiet particularly early in the morning . I would meet the odd car heading towards Wrexham and a few that were travelling in the opposite direction . I could hear them coming in the distance which gave me chance to leap onto the grass verge to avoid them. We are walking in a 40mph area but few cars bother to adhere to the speed limit . I choose to get out of their way as they seem oblivious to me walking . It is uphill on the first part of the work . Sometimes I pass a lonely runner but today I saw no-one. The clocks have changed so although my watch tells me it is 8am the reality is that it is just 7am. It was peaceful with just the odd sheep disturbing me or am I disturbing them . I am always glad to get to the end of the road where I have choices . To my right a long lane where I might come up against a tractor out early or a dog walker . Plus the lovely man with the apple tree in
his garden . Too late for me to scrump apples but he has told me I am free to pick what I want . I did this walk two weeks ago. To the right the Cloy. Past farms, bungalows and cottages . I walked that lane last week taking a short cut along the old railway line which was wet and boggy . Sometimes I wish I had a three sided coin - Heads go one way, Tails the other and a spare face for a third choice . But I don't have that luxury so make the decision to go left along Wallington Lane . It is a longer walk but a quiet one . I won't see many cars. I can concentrate on trying to find things to photograph. The skeletal trees against the blue sky. The white Dead Nettles oddly early to flower .
The sun was shining and my transition lenses had turned brown. I began to think I was seeing things. There seemed more cars than usual on the main road . They all seemed to be turning down the lane where I was headed . Perhaps they have caravans on Emral Caravan Park I thought . They all drove past the entrance . Where they going to Malpas ? It is an odd way to go . Surely they would go through Bangor . I was getting more and more confused as more cars flew past me . Some of the drivers waved to me. Some let me cross the road in front of them . Was there something going on in Worthenbury church? I was running out of ideas. I soon found the answer as I rounded a corner . Cars were parked up on the grass verge . People were stopped and talked to each other. Some in small groups . Others just a handful . A young guy stood in the middle of road directing the traffic . "You can park here " he shouted and they all did what he said . They carried small shovels and then it dawned on me . I was watching the detectorists . The young guy seemingly in charge shouted a good morning to me and I asked what they had planned . He told me that they were spending the day in this field and if I came by later he would show me their finds . It turned out I had stumbled on Noble Pursuits . A local club where members paid £20 to detect in a farmers field . The directorists benefited as they found silver sometimes in the fields , coins from the reign of Edward I right up to date , buckles , brooches and sometimes Roman artifacts . They cleared the farmers field of all bits of rusty iron and if they found treasure trove the proceeds were divided 50/50 between the finder and the land owner . A win win situation .
I left the group as they headed out for their day of digging . Along the road I met the farmer with his dog . Stopped to take photographs of massive hay bales, rusty old yellow JCB's and red farming equipment . I would have much preferred to have taken photographs of a hammered silver coin than of these run of the mill everyday sights . But then that is the luck of the draw . For me today it was just a normal walk with normal things . For the detectorists the hope that they would find treasure trove . For me it was the joy of just finding something even if it was just an old piece of rusty farm machinery .
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Home and Away
Bob Carlsen
I've never heard of detectorists...
My wife would really enjoy this! She has a metal detector, but there isn't much history or treasure buried around here. When are you headed to the Continent?