Friday, 10 January 2014

Responsible landowner: "It's Heritage in my Fields and if you Remove it You're Stealing"


Over on a metal detecting near you, we learn that the British policy of entrusting the protection of the archaeological heritage to the landowning classes can sometimes pay off. A metal detectorist ("Downer :(" by gsxrjames47,Thu Jan 09, 2014 10:41 am) notes :
"[I] Had looked at a bit of land just next to me where a clan had been from 1100's, loads of stubble parks, decided to go up this morning to see the farmer, asked him very politely for permission, unfortunately he said no, saying "anything in these fields are Scottish heritage, and if you remove it your stealing" [. I] didn't really want to start a debate about reporting finds to FLO etc so just respected his decision and went on my way. Not a great start to the morning"
So, it would seem that the PAS dig-it-all-up-now-help-yerselves outreach has not yet eroded the principles of everyone. There are stioll a few enlightened people out there that see teh need to protect the heritage from pilfering by collectables-seekers.

Note the motif of how in other circumstances our hero would have argued that his "reporting finds to the FLO" would somehow make it "not stealing the heritage". How odd though that he seems to think there is an FLO for his area, the region around Glasgow. That seems to me to suggest that "gsxrjames47" has never tried in fact to contact the Glasgow FLO which rather suggests that his talk of recording his finds from the region refers to "theory" but not "practice".

Still, not all landowners care about the artefact hoiking, Mr gsxrjames47 managed to get permission to hoik just recently (First good permission : Friday, January 03, 2014, 12:46)
Got my first good bit of permission today all around a old roman fort, over 10 large fields
and who says these people do not target known sites and the areas around?  When he's not metal detecting, on may observe that what seems to be the same "gsxrjames47" thinks he's also entitled to address abusive tweets to celebrities.

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