An Anglo-Saxon Cemetery in Lincolnshire
7 January 2001

A weekend with Time Team
by metal detectorist Denny Woodthorpe
Late last summer I received a letter from Time Team's production unit inviting me to carry out the metal detecting associated with a programme they were undertaking in Lincolnshire. The reason why I was chosen to take part was apparently due to my close links with archaeologists at both Scunthorpe Museum and Heritage Lincolnshire, where I report all my own finds.

What followed was an amazing weekend throughout which I was made to feel very much part of 'the Team' and during which I became closely involved in the making of an exciting television programme.

Two hundred home-made flags
There were two of us metal detecting over the weekend, both local to the area. Nine o'clock on Friday morning we were rushed up to the site to undertake a preliminary survey. We are to be seen in the background of Tony's opening 'piece to camera'. I had brought with me 200 home-made flags and these were stuck in the ground wherever we received a signal. I had explained to the director that the great majority of these signals would be from modern rubbish, but it was decided to see if there was a concentration of signals in any area. It soon became evident that there was no pattern to the signals and all those that were dug proved to be modern iron rubbish.

When the first trench was put in, it soon became clear to me why we had not found any older signals. The soil exposed was of fine clay, without any stones in it, whereas the field next door had a plentiful supply of stones of all sizes. This indicated to me that the area chosen for the first trench had not been ploughed for hundreds of years. Worm action had brought soil to the surface, causing stones and artefacts to migrate lower and lower. Only items lost recently remained in the upper layers and even if the field had been ploughed recently, the plough would have only turned over the top, stone-free layers.

Interrupted by the cameraman's mobile
At this stage, I was interviewed by Phil on camera for a piece about metal detecting. It took several 'takes' to get it right as we were walking, talking and detecting at the same time. I was supposed to 'discover' an object hidden in the grass, but missed it time after time by wandering off line. When eventually I found it, the take was ruined by the cameraman's mobile phone ringing! We did finally get things right and I was assured by Phil that as the item was scripted, it would appear in the programme. However, events were to overtake us and as there was such an embarrassment of riches in the three days, my little piece was edited out.

I took lunch with the Team and spent an enjoyable time chatting to Phil when I gave him a lift back up to the site. It was a real pleasure discussing landscape theory with Stewart Ainsworth; and John Gater even asked me for my opinions on different detectors, as they were thinking of buying a new one for the geophysics team.

Roman coins and the Anglo Saxon knife
Having found nothing on the surface of the field or in the trench, we began Day Two surveying the field next door, which had been ploughed and harrowed by the farmer. I met with greater success here, finding several late Roman coins and part of a medieval spur. These were bagged and left on the surface of the field where they were found, so that Bernard of the geophysics team could plot their precise location using satellite navigation. It made my own recording technique of a six-figure grid reference look weak by comparison.

For the rest of the weekend, I spent my time searching spoil heaps and going over the floor of the trenches. My particular highlight was 'finding' the knife lying on the chest of the skeleton being excavated by Carenza. It was very satisfying to predict that there was a long thin iron object lying on the ribs – and to be proved right as Carenza carefully scraped the soil away.

A puzzle solved?
The main 'puzzle' of the weekend was why the Anglo-Saxon cemetery lay in the remains of a Roman settlement. I have a definite theory as to why this was so. Land was precious to Anglo-Saxon farmers, most of whom produced barely enough to keep their families alive. If the elders of the village had approached one of them for land for a cemetery, I am sure he would have been loath to give up any of his productive land. Instead, he would have directed them to the bit of land on the top of the hill that was so full of rubble that he could not get a plough through it. I think that is why Anglo-Saxon cemeteries occur in the rubble of Roman sites. The higher the status of the Roman site, the more rubble, and the more marginal the land.

Other Anglo-Saxon cemeteries in the area also occur on marginal, unproductive land. Often it is on very weak, sandy soil, as at Ruskington, where the soil is of such poor quality that the farmers have left most of the fields in the area as 'set aside' for the last ten years. I believe that it is always the least productive land that is used for burial.

Promoting responsible metal detecting
Looking back over the weekend, I would like to think that my involvement in the Time Team programme has done a little to promote the hobby of metal detecting as a responsible pastime, in which the majority are involved in discovering history and sharing it with others. Many thousands of artefacts are being rescued from destruction in the plough soil of this country by people with metal detectors. The Voluntary Reporting Scheme now in operation means that a large proportion of these artefacts are properly recorded, enabling archaeologists to fit more pieces into the jigsaw that is our past.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the Team and can now appreciate more fully the stresses involved in undertaking a dig in three days whilst recording it all for the cameras. I do not even mind ending up on the cutting-room floor – even though I had assured family and friends that I was going to be on television!

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