Detectorists are searching ... for West Berkshire land to detect on

Forget the search for a star, a hobbyist group is on the lookout for soil … and West Berkshire’s hidden history.

Gary Franklin heads up a team of detectorists and they want landowners to give them permission to sweep across their fields.

Launched in 2017, The Soil Searchers started with 10 members taking their metal detectors out on a Sunday.

Fast forward seven years and they have hundreds of members, more than 7,000 followers on social media, and a slew of terrific finds from the Iron Age upwards.

Having permission to search land is a crucial part of the hobby, and they organise digs most weekends, on both large estates and small holdings.

Mr Franklin said the club pays for the privilege of detecting, and works hard to ensure the land is looked after.

They even clear away the scrap metal and other rubbish they detect along the way.

After a dig, they send the landowners an email.

“It contains anything of interest we find, we’ll go into a bit of detail about what it was, its use and any history around it,” he said.

“We attach photographs.

“We have found some amazing stuff over the years.

“You can go to somewhere really historic and find nothing, and go to a random field in the middle of nowhere and find something epic.

“That’s the beauty of the hobby.”

Finds include a gold quarter state on land near Winchester – the eighth ever found.

For Mr Franklin, his hobby is all thanks to a lucky penny.

“I’ve been with my wife for 28 years and we had brought each other everything we needed at birthdays and Christmas,” he recalled.

“She heard me comment about fancying a metal detector – I think I saw something on TV. The next thing I know I’ve got a cheap little detector.

“I turned it on, literally moved it to the left and it made a noise. I dug down and found one penny. That was amazing.”

He was hooked and has found many things ever since.

The 53-year-old from Hampshire said: “I’ve been very fortunate – over the years I’ve found a horde of Roman republican denarii, they would have been coins in a Roman’s pocket.

“We never know what we’re going to find.”

There is more to being a detectorist than getting permission and then getting into the field.

It is a social group as well, with club members enjoying a picnic in the fields they’re detecting, then having meals out afterwards.

Mr Franklin said: “We club together, pay the landowners for access to their fields when they aren’t using them, and it’s a really good social day out.

“We’re not a trained body, we’ve enthusiasts who take it seriously. It’s a great hobby – really fascinating and incredible.”

This is the ideal time for the club to be searching for land; with the harvest starting to be brought home, land can be available for a couple of days before the next set of crops are planted out.

With the detectorists ensuring the land is left as it was found, including plugs filled back in and waste removed, they try to make it a positive experience for the landowner.

Each square metre is mapped using the What Three Words app, and logged with the local liaison officer.

“It helps piece together the history of the area,” Mr Franklin said.

“We could come to a site that is believed to be a mediaeval site, and then suddenly find a gold coin from the Iron Age.”

They also enjoy sharing details of their finds: “It’s important we do it responsibly,” he said, adding that he is the first one on a site, and the last to leave, such is his commitment to getting all the small details right including sharing details of their finds.

“A lot of the landowners are just fascinated,” he said.

“We’re giving them information on land that might have been in their family for generations.

“If we find a coin, it could have been one of their ancestors that dropped it.

“We’ve never had someone say we can’t come back, which is really nice.

“It’s not in our interest to leave a site in a bad way, or run it unprofessionally. We take it very seriously.”

New members are welcome, with details on the group’s website https://www.tssmdc.co.uk/

“We have members aged from 10 up to someone in their 80s; it is a very diverse age group within the club,” Mr Franklin said.

“We try to make sure it is a group that goes out and has fun.

“I’ve become good friends with a lot of people through this.”

Anyone who has some land that the group can use is invited to get in touch via the group’s website.

“We like to meet first, because every farm is different,” Mr Franklin said.

“We do this because everyone will have different rules, and we want to make sure we abide by them.

“We want to be invited back.

“We do a lot in West Berkshire because it is a really good area and there is a lot of farmland around here.”

Whether it’s another penny, some scrap metal, or an Iron Age coin, Mr Franklin hopes it will turn up in a field near us.