You’d think (as they hold commercial detecting events most weekends) Central Searchers would wish to be seen as responsible. But look what they say about their upcoming 3-day Bank Holiday Special at Twywell/Slipton, Northants …….
”We have now run out of cropped land to search…. So this means a return to pasture, we have 3 new un-searched pasture sites to use, however we are we are returning to the most productive of our pasture sites first. This weekends dig has been particularly kind with Hammered coins and Saxon artefacts on the previous visits. Some of the site is ploughed out Ridge and Furrow, other parts still has the real deep ridge and furrow, part of the land still has Iron Age burial mounds visible which can also be seen on the air photos of this site.” (See http://www.centralsearchers.co.uk/ and click on Club Digs.)
That certainly seems to suggest they’re selling (inter alia) the right to metal detect on deep “ridge and furrow” (which by definition is “undisturbed pasture” and a no-go area according to clear archaeological advice to confine events to disturbed ground that has been ploughed within the last five years. If that’s not the case they ought to clarify lest customers are misled. On the other hand, if it IS what’s intended….well…. that would make this event even more outrageous than the recent notorious one at Foxham
But that’s not all. We have dubbed it a crassfest for a separate reason. It seems they have a “Rule” that applies to ALL their events: Items found by any member/non member/guest can be retained by the member/non member/guest as long as its value is no more than £2,000. Translated, they are telling customers that although all non-Treasure finds are owned by the landowner they have swung a deal that says their customers will own 100% of any such finds that are worth up to £2,000! We thought the event held by the Colchester Metal Detecting Club was unseemly enough – see Lucrative Heroism – but this, negotiating to own the first £2,000 of finds, far out-grubs that – and they do the same deal every week it seems, which means thousands of detectorists have attended events on that basis.
Twywell Day 1. Digging purely to save history for everyone else in Britain. Although… “Items found by any member/non member/guest can be retained by the member/non member/guest as long as its value is no more than £2,000.” (So apart from Treasure Items the farmer and anyone else can whistle for virtually anything that comes up!)
So what think you dear reader? Does it seem like a Rule designed for a gathering of people whose main interest is “history” – people that British archaeology should flatter and get itself in “partnership” with? Or does it seem like a Rule designed to attract primarily acquisitive people, out to grab what they can get? Is it fair or unfair to call such an event a crassfest that brings profound shame upon our country? You choose.
UPDATE Wednesday 27 October 2010: It seems that those who run Central Searchers continue to regard “ridge and furrow ” as fair game for them to exploit for money despite knowing it’s wrong. This time they are exercising their selfless beneficence in Bythorn, Cambridgeshire. The thirty acres of British history they have arranged for their paying customers to detect upon today include, in their own self-condemnatory words, “20 acres of ridge and furrow pasture that runs to the back of Bythorn village up to the earthworks of an old manor house“.
UPDATE Tuesday 2 February 2011: And still they persist. This time they’ve targeted 200 acres of ridge and furrow pasture at Keyston, Cambridgeshire, that English Heritage say is of national and perhaps international importance.
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For more on Central Searchers, see here
and for more Heritage Action views on metal detecting and artefact collecting go here
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18 comments
29/05/2010 at 17:05
Fred Cooper
I detect at some of the CS events and I find them well run and occasionally I even find something interesting. I have no interest whatsoever in the value and most of my better finds have been donated to museums. The £2000 threshhold applies to treasure and non treasure alike and is designed to make it absolutely clear what the relationship between the finder and landowner is. You know as well as we do that no private agreement can override the law of the land so the Treasure Act still applies in full. If you were really that interested you would be out there arranging for the whole of the UK to be subjected to a controlled archeological excavation before development, fertiliser, livestock or vigorous modern agriculture trashes all the small metal finds. As it is your comments just sound like sour grapes.
30/05/2010 at 07:12
heritageaction
“The £2000 threshhold applies to treasure and non treasure alike and is designed to make it absolutely clear what the relationship between the finder and landowner is.”
Indeed, it makes the relationship crystal clear. It asserts that apart from Treasure items the landowner normally gets approximately nothing and the detectorists normally gets approximately everything and that the landowner has sold the community’s history and they have bought it.
30/05/2010 at 10:45
Gill Evans
Interesting comments I just wish you had spoken to us first then you would fully understand how we work, but obviously you couldnt be bothered.
Nice photo to that was taken yesterday in the pouring rain, (Day one of the Crassfest) but just for your information that detectorist was on a field that has actually been ploughed in the past. Again never bothered to check the actual “FACTS”.
By the way thanks for all the publicity.
30/05/2010 at 11:31
heritageaction
You give the impression you believe we have written something factually incorrect. But you have failed to say what.
We have to say that if you believe our article has provided welcome publicity that doesn’t say much for the sort of customers you are wishing to attract.
31/05/2010 at 23:13
Darren Grimshaw
I am one of those customers that CS attracted and find your comment about the people CS attracts quite insulting. This means that I can detect safely, legally and with the consent of the landowner. Without CS and people like them, I think that more people would resort to detecting using the light of the moon. Most people just want a good day detecting for the love of it.
Regards
Darren Grimshaw
01/06/2010 at 06:33
heritageaction
Unfortunately, detecting “safely, legally and with the consent of the landowner” is neither enough nor the point.
02/06/2010 at 13:01
Martin Wright
Well suprise suprise you removed my last polite posting.
Just shows that you really are a bunch of:
W*NK*RS
02/06/2010 at 13:19
Graham Dempsey
01/06/2010 at 6:33 am
heritageaction
Unfortunately, detecting “safely, legally and with the consent of the landowner” is neither enough nor the point.
SO WHAT IS THE POINT OR IS IT JUST YOUR POINT ??????
02/06/2010 at 14:50
John
I think the point that they may be referring to is ‘choosing to behave ethically’.
02/06/2010 at 15:49
Gill Evans
detecting “safely, legally and with the consent of the landowner” is neither enough nor the point.
I would have said that was exactly the point after all the land is the landowners property and up to him what to do with it unless it’s scheduled or under ELS or HLS
02/06/2010 at 16:53
heritageaction
I don’t think that anyone could dispute that what you do is legal 😉
…in England
02/06/2010 at 20:02
Graham Dempsey
I don’t think that anyone could dispute that what you do is legal 😉
in England
So No laws were broken Well Done Central Seachers on doing something Legal and within the law of the United Kingdom .
Any other snide comments welcome !
02/06/2010 at 20:31
Martin
I am also what you call. Quote. “Doesn’t say much for the sort of people you attract”
Never mind history, heritage, metal detecting.
What sort of person are you to judge others that you have never met and know nothing about.
What right do you have to speak in public about others in that way?
I find your comments both offensive and ignorant and yet you try and take some high morale ground and talk of ethics.
I am a law abiding citizen that as never done anything to anyone.
I recently played a part in saving someones life and each month assist in a community service for free in my time even though i work 60 hours a week very week.
You claim to serve the preservation of history yet your actions betray that you serve only your own bigoted view.
02/06/2010 at 22:50
darren Grimshaw
I have attended CS digs for nearly a year now and met people from all walks of life (up standing people who contribute much to this country Great Britain). Professionals such as police, scientist, teachers, paramedics, soldiers, tradesmen to the man that empties your bins. I was wondering what type of people you mean CS will attract. People I speak to on the digs are, believe it or not also interested in the heritage and history of this county, even if they are armed with a dangerous weapon called a metal detector. My point that you say I don’t get is to highlight the positive side and not just your negative views.
02/06/2010 at 22:55
Big Mick
Quote “02/06/2010 at 4:53 pm heritageaction
I don’t think that anyone could dispute that what you do is legal
…in England”
Then stop trying to stir up trouble for all the law abiding metal detectorist over here in the UK.
Watch out for a new web site called anti-heritageactiongroup.co.uk
A word of friendly advise! we know who and where you are. 😉
02/06/2010 at 23:06
member of heritageaction
“we know who and where you are”
Well. That didn’t take long to come out.
I’ve suspended the acceptance of metal detectorist comments on this topic for the present.
02/06/2010 at 23:43
Gordon
You know. I’ve had a lot of difficulty with this issue. My instinct has been that the activity is wrong, but trying to find sufficient reason to support that, given the wreck that is being perpetrated on the archaeological record anyway – and primarily by agricultural practice, hasn’t been easy. But I think that I’ve now come to fully understand the logic behind my position and despite that barrage of threat and bile, I’ll address the two issues raised;
1. The law is not always the ‘ethical position’. Otherwise laws would never be changed. Why do governments legislate? Metal-detecting was legal in Ireland. Now it isn’t. Does that mean that it was uncriticisable, and morally correct, before it was banned, but perfectly criticisable and morally suspect now? Read Animal Farm.
2. I’m not sure how eager those professionals you mention would be if other people, untrained, had a go at their job. I’m not an archaelogist, but I assume that they’re learning something in college for all those years. Many of you may not fully realise the harm that you are doing.
Two wrongs don’t make a right – pulling items ‘dead’ from the soil, digging through the archaeology to get at the metal, or discarding ‘worthless’ items isn’t fully responsible for the death of the archaeological record, but it’s eating the twitching body as if it were carrion. I’ve put my own name above this. I made the last comment. No one else here did. I am the one that should be attacked.
03/06/2010 at 01:55
Nigel
No Gordon, I’m more deeply implicated (and older!) and must take the brunt of that threat. I’ve had many from his likeminded friends over the years and don’t dismiss any of them.
You’ve explained it admirably. Ethics, the one concept that remains completely inaccessible to most metal detectorists and the one thing that gives us all the logical and moral right in the world to express contempt for much of what they do and don’t (along with most archaeologists in private and any thinking, informed person, notwithstanding the endless bleating about legality and “we must save it all (for whom??) before it rots”).
What a pitiful set of comments. No-one addressing what we wrote. No-one managing to rise above the usual tangential abuse and/or threats. Some consigned to the trash on the grounds of pointlessness, crudity or nastiness. One thing HAS come out of it though. One of the leading rally providers just doesn’t get it –
detecting “safely, legally and with the consent of the landowner” is neither enough nor the point.
I would have said that was exactly the point after all the land is the landowners property and up to him what to do with it unless it’s scheduled or under ELS or HLS
Poor PAS and CBA, they must be tearing each other’s hair out! If the leading rally provider (and their customers, ex officio) haven’t yet understood that causing no damage to the record at their events is totally and utterly paramount at all times, what has thirteen years of “outreach” been all about?
Incidentally, if anyone cares to let us know who “Big Mick” is please email us at info@heritageaction.co.uk as we’re anxious to contact him (we are quite sure most people well understand how unwelcome threats are to people with families) – although we won’t hold our breath – after all, the nighthawking survey stood by the phone after a similar request, and hardly need have bothered, misplaced loyalty and clannishness being the order of the day.