Friday, 16 October 2020

Lenborough. "Weekend Wanders" Came to "Responsibly Plunder" the Site, Left only Holes

 

This is pretty shocking. I'm writing something and needed a "good bad example" of metal detecting mispractice... this blog is full of them, but that Lenborough sticks in my mind. I'll remind readers that its a site under old  grassland, with earthworks all over it, a DMV and field system, some ponds(?) too. Certainly NOT the place anyone even half "responsible" would hold a commercial rally and think they can get away without criticism. So Pete Welch of the Weekend Wanderers did not bother too much about that and went ahead and did it. The weekend rally was attended by approximately one hundred people. 

The rally took place 20-21st December 2014. So for my piece I wanted to show how the other finds from the medieval ploughsoil over the hoard relate to it, to build up at least a partial picture of the history of the site. Ahem... So, let's look at the PAS database. Well, here's the hoard (TPQ 1035)  and here are all of the finds that the database says have ever come from a place called Lenborough in Bucks over the past decade or so of metal detecting there. A paltry 23.  Twenty three from a rally attended by 100 people! Now look at the dates.  The hoard was found on 21st December 2014. The record was made on the 22nd - but nothing else. It looks very much like nothing else from that Weekend Wanderers Rally got onto the database. The next find was a ring recorded on 24th July 2015 from a different area of the parish entirely. No wonder the FLOs have stopped going to rallies. There is a group of four finds from Lenborough that the FLO recorded on the previous Wednesday, I assume because she knew she'd meet the finder there at the rally and they'd ask for them back.  

So one hundred weekend wanderers came from all over the place to LOOT the archaeology of the otherwise unthreatened earthwork site under old pasture site at Lenborough and according to the PAS database not a single one of them thought that the decent and responsible thing to do was get a single one of them reported? Scandalous. And that is why I do not believe all this claptrap about "responsible detecting".  



at

4 comments:

  1. Brian Mattick17 October 2020 at 00:57

    "And that is why I do not believe all this claptrap about "responsible detecting""


    What?! You have no faith in an inadequate code inadequately followed?

    You need to get on the train to Liaisonville!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Paul Barford17 October 2020 at 02:05

    One hundred people were standing on the platform at Lenborough Halt station, the train stopped, the FLO invited them aboard, not a single one is recorded as having got on. Liaisonville station remained empty. Just a name.

    Cases like this, on record for all to see, show why we need the introduction of regulation of this activity, we've waited too long for voluntary compliance, now we need to enforce it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Brian Mattick17 October 2020 at 02:28

    Someone has just come up with the hoary old chestnut "regulation will lead to lawbreaking". Even PAS trots that out.

    They omit the obvious addition: "lawbeaking leads to prosecution".

    ReplyDelete
  4. Paul Barford17 October 2020 at 04:25

    So they mean regulated like they did finding Treasure? If regulation leads to lawbreaking, how many lawbreaking Treasure Hunters are there currently in the UK?

    ReplyDelete