Rotary Clubs: enabling metal detecting rallies and causing massive heritage damage!

Rotary Clubs are by far the biggest hosts of Charity detecting rallies. (“Rotary club” + “metal detecting” gets you 15,500 Google hits). It’s due to the kindness of their land-owning members, unaware of the heritage damage, and that the main beneficiaries are the detectorists, who keep the finds, not donate them.

Last year Dunmow Rotary Club held their third successive rally at Thaxted. This is why: “Barry joined Dunmow Rotary Club in 2015, from the Wootton Bassett Rotary Club, bringing the idea of a metal detecting rally with him”.

Yes, Wootton Bassett Rotary Club. Last year it held its 22nd charity rally! 22 rallies, imagine! Why hasn’t PAS written to Rotary International and told them what they think of large detecting rallies? (i.e. they won’t attend them as they “can result in the loss of much archaeological information“). Beats us.

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More Heritage Journal views on artefact collecting
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