A lot of people ask how to get a permission… I think some of the answers lie in the fact that if you bother to do some research, it shows a willingness to work in the field and off the field, plus research proves to a landowner that the area you’re looking at, & have found his history and useful information that you think you could use to present to the land owner – this way it shows you care about what you do and your passionate about the history. most farm details are online, you might want to email them with the information you have garnered with your research, and ask if you could make an appointment to talk in person, some times just turning up to someone’s land can be off-putting, but i do that also, i tend to carry an assortment of finds to show the land owner, these finds have found previously, and from where also insurance is a good way of showing how seriously you are and a ten million pound insurance might be helpful…
Is Site Research important before you go onto a site with a metal detector, i think the answer is yes, you would not go dump digging without prior knowledge of where the most likely place a dump is located, or go panning for gold in a stream on the off chance it might contain gold nuggets, but with the right equipment at your fingertips & with the wonders of modern technology, we can upload so many research sites, in an instance, but is there any one better than any other, i think there is one that stands out from the rest, this is the one i have used repeatedly over the years, it is free and very informative, which in today’s society is quite refreshing…. does it work, yes, and it works really well i have found silver coins and nonprecious artefacts that have been dropped or discarded, via old footpaths or little greens that have rerouted or are simply no longer there, so i would say you get satisfactory results every-time…
Below is a screenshot of just one good example, where on a modern map nothing shows up at all but put it alongside an older ordinance survey map of 1885 – 1905, it shows a farm called Villiams, as circled in blue, it disappears from the maps somewhere in the 1920’s, with plenty good finds being found, every time i search this area i find something, i must admit the ground is littered with iron, as is another site i have the privilege of searching… i did find glass from Villiams farm site, they are the remains of a set of dentures, which looks like the upper part of the set & made of glass, these were found lying on the surface, near the gateway…
udigidig.com 