Paying oodles to take away unshown. How did Britain get here?

From a detecting forum this week :

“Just seen on FB someone looking for permission and willing to pay £500 if over 30 acres, Sent them a question asking is this for groups/clubs or a single person and they replied single, i despair.”

“Wow. That is frightening.”

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But why be surprised or upset? Commercial detecting groups pay farmers twice that amount up and down the country every week. That’s how much of Britain’s buried heritage is being removed – and of course, even though it belongs to the landowner or the country – in silence.

It’s been going on for so many years and at such a scale that Britain is now inured to it – the authorities rarely express horror and landowners remain largely unaware of how damaging it is. Why aren’t farmers officially advised not to allow it? Here’s an example of what’s going on in the fields reduced to a domestic scale. If such a conversation between unequal partners was ever caught on a doorbell camera there would be national outrage.

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“Hello dear, I’m an historian and charity worker. May I go in your loft for £500?”

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More Heritage Journal views on artefact collecting
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