Group Ethos What 'rules' do we follow?

The Six Rs

REQUEST

We, as a group, can receive a request to either locate missing items or to investigate an 'interesting' area of property (for example, an abandoned village) or indeed we as a group may identify an area that is worthy of investigation and we therefore do what we can to identify the landowner and obtain permission to field walk and detect.

RESEARCH

Where we can, we research areas that we are looking at using old maps, Google Earth, old documents, parish records and so on. If possible, we try and talk to local inhabitants or farmers for more details too.

RETRIEVE

We use field walking (a systematic visual examination of a predefined area) where general layout and possible artefacts may point to 'hot spots' that should be investigated in more detail. We may subsequently use metal detecting to locate and retrieve any items.

RECOGNISE

Artefacts that have been retrieved are identified as far as possible using a number of different reference points available to us. One major advantage is the wealth of knowledge that our group already has which usually gives us a good starting point.

RECORD

Should an item be perceived to be of significance then it is recorded by location, type, material, estimated age etc and logged with the Portable Antiquities Scheme to ensure any information on important finds is made available to a wider audience.

REPORT

Reports of significant finds are made available to initially the landowner and, if required, to a wider audience (for example, a presentation at a village hall.) Care is taken to ensure geographical details are kept to a minimum to all except the landowner who would have full finds details.