COME DIG WITH US : A FIRST TIME FOR TOM AYLING
From Antiquarian Books to Unearthing Local History
Tom Ayling is a good friend and fellow content creator who is rooted firmly into the pages of antiquarian books. As an antiquarian bookseller he is responsible for the buying, researching and selling of rare books and manuscripts and is always on the lookout for fine and interesting copies of great English Literature. One particular quality that he looks out for in the purchase of a new copy would be one that has the most interesting story to tell and that doesn't just mean the words that are written onto its pages.
But today we are throwing Tom into the deep end and introducing him to a different kind of tale, one that is rooted not into antique pages but into the lost artefacts that are hidden right under his feet in his home turf of South Oxfordshire. He has never even held a metal detector before but today he is going to get up close and personal with the Minelab Vanquish 340 as we guide him through a day's digging at Spring Detectival 2023.
Before Tom even set foot onto the Detectival site he had a few questions for us, with the most crucial being ‘What should I wear?’ Now anybody who was at Spring Detectival will know that Friday evening was a total wash out, and we were essentially swimming through a mud bath in the camping area. So, desperately trying not to put Tom off before he’d even dug his first hole, we just told him to come dressed for a hike and to be prepared to get a little bit muddy. So dressed in his finest dog walking gear Tom appears Saturday morning without a single idea about just what he has gotten himself in for.
He has never even held a metal detector before but today he is going to get up close and personal with the Minelab Vanquish 340 as we guide him through a day's digging at Spring Detectival 2023.
As the horn blows and over a thousand metal detectorists swarm into the open fields we hang back and get into the technicalities of showing Tom the digging ropes. We’ve all been there in his shoes at our first ever group dig without a single clue about what we are doing and we certainly have the bag of nails to prove it.
So just what were the Roman Found Digging Secrets that we showed Tom?
Well the very first and most important tip was hole class, especially as we were digging on pasture. We demonstrated how to dig a 3 sided plug which is where you leave one side of the hole connected to the main grass, as a flap, to flip the plug of soil out with. This makes for easy replacement and also helps to avoid unsightly dead brown patches as the grass remains connected to the main turf and nutrients.
Digging a good hole is a metal detecting art form and an important one as having care and respect over the land ensures for better relationships with your landowners and potentially more permissions from it.
The second Roman Found top tip was to not feel the pressure to race around the fields, there may be over a thousand other detectorists here but they aren’t going to find everything. By hanging back, taking it low and slow and really listening to the signals that the detector is telling you then you might just find the treasure everybody else has missed.
Then the third and final tip, (because you can’t just learn everything by being told he needs to get out there and dig some trash!), was all about listening to the signals and looking out for those targets that have a consistent VDI or strong solid tone. If in doubt, then dig it anyway and learn from what’s in that hole. Don’t be afraid of the small numbers either as they often contain the most exciting coins and artefacts, it's not all about those shouty 20s.
So armed with some Roman Found advice and a small lesson on pinpointing a target by doing a 90 degree twist and listen, we set him off swinging his way over the field to dig his first holes and find his first treasures.
We’ve all been there in his shoes at our first ever group dig without a single clue about what we are doing and we certainly have the bag of nails to prove it.
We armed Tom with the Minelab Vanquish 340, our very first machine and still trusty back up to this day. The faithful 340 found us everything in those early days from Roman Coins to Tudor Gold so we were confident it could unearth some treasures for Tom.
The only downside to the 340 is the lack of bluetooth headphones meaning it’s easy to get tangled in the wires. But for his first ever experience learning those signals and tones then the switch on and go aspect was crucial, you don’t need to be faffing around with threshold and recovery speed and all the gubbins whilst still learning what on earth you should be listening for at the same time. So set in jewellery mode, which is the official Roman Found tried and tested 340 setting, just what did Tom find?
Well don’t worry because Tom certainly achieved a metal detecting rite of passage finding his first ever nail, and by the end of the day he had quite a collection of them going! But whilst these might seem like a bit of a trash find to some detectorists we certainly went into a bit of a deep dive into them when we first started digging, as it was basically all we were finding, and some of them can have some quite beautiful qualities and age to them.
The faithful 340 found us everything in those early days from Roman Coins to Tudor Gold so we were confident it could unearth some treasures for Tom.
The particular nails that Tom was unearthing were actually lovely examples of some of the oldest types of nails: hand forged nails and early cut nails, two types that contain a story of blacksmithing within their iron forms.
Nails were actually some of the first metal objects to be made by humankind and the earliest types can be distinguished by their square profiles and forged heads that were normally made by bending over the top of the nail to form an L shape or by striking a mould over the top to create a shaped end such as the common pyramid shape. Early hand forged nails were actually very expensive to produce and were used sparingly. From the 16th Century though they developed the technology to produce the square sections so only the head and the point needed to be hand forged meaning these later types can be distinguished from the early ones by their regular shapes and sharp sections, whereas hand forged nails contain lots of wonderful irregularities.
The hand forged element and high quality metal content to these types of nails is what gives them quite a good signal and why they are a common find to us detectorists, we certainly still dig them. But don’t worry, by the end of the day Tom had a lot more in his pocket than just nails.
The oldest find that Tom unearthed was a lovely sub triangular decorative mount that dates from the early to late Tudor period. These types of mounts would have been used as decorative studs and plates across various strap fittings, either on a horse harness or on a belt strap. They are wonderful examples of the fashion of the time and some of them would have even been gilded for that extra flash of opulence. The more ornate the decoration on your belt the higher your social status.
To his muddy historical collection of artefacts that he was beginning to unearth, Tom also added another metal detecting rite of passage finding a lead musket ball. A brilliant signal to find he’s really starting to get his ear in now finding solid targets, and a musket ball is a brilliant one with some great history behind it!
Lead was first introduced as shot during the 15th Century but it is during the English Civil War of the 17th Century that we saw the biggest increase and use of lead shot by both the infantry and the cavalry. Musket balls were fired in their tens of thousands during the civil war and were mass produced, delivered in huge barrels to the clashing armies. But fascinatingly despite this mass production soldiers also made their own shot in the field using small hand held moulds. As time went on musket balls became smaller and lighter to be more accurate when fired so the bigger your musket ball the more likely it is that it has come from the Civil War period and could even have been moulded in the heat of battle by a soldier frantic to reload.
What a tale that can be told by these little lead balls, and even more can be found out by looking at the markings upon the musket ball itself. As lead is a very soft material it was easily moulded and easily marked, you may be able to discern firing marks, casting marks and even tooth marks as it has been suggested that soldiers often held bullets in their mouths during reloading and we have all heard of the phrase ‘biting the bullet’.
But don’t worry because by the end of the day Tom had a lot more in his pocket than just nails.
Tom is starting to pull together some incredible stories from the artefacts that he is uncovering but it is his final find that contains the greatest tale and history of the day.
It was an Oxford Yeomanry Button from the Watlington Troop that we all got the most excited about, and the reason for all this excitement was down to the text that detailed the front. To find text on a metal detecting find immediately opens up the research avenues allowing for a deep dive into the history behind the artefact. So we were thrilled that Tom had found something he could really get his teeth into, and text as well, something close to home for him in the book world.
The front of the button reveals the first half of its story proudly reading ‘Oxford Yeomanry W. T.’ and designating the button to belong to the Watlington Division or Troop (W.T.) of the Oxford Yeomanry Group. The Oxford Yeomanry were formed by The Earl Of Macclesfield and the owner of Shirburn Castle just the other side of Watlington from where we were detecting. In its early days the Yeomanry were several informal bands of troops, the first of which was the Watlington Troop (formed in 1798), but they increased to seven troops by 1802. In 1823, the independent troops were merged together into the 1st Oxfordshire Regiment dating Tom’s button to before this date as it clearly comes from the Watlington Troop.
A Yeomanry division itself was born out of a history of volunteer units and militia. They were a kind of sub division of the armed forces and were largely local people drafted into part time groups of mounted cavalry. During war time it is common for the Yeomanry Groups to be relied upon to provide valuable support and relief to the forces at the frontline and indeed the 1st Oxfordshire Yeomanry Regiment (the newly formed Oxford Yeomanry Troops) found themselves in Dunkirk during the First World War and were actually the first Yeomanry Division to see action.
The reverse of the button reveals the final part of its story, the maker of the button, and this can be just as important as the detail on the front as it can provide valuable information for dating the find. The maker was revealed as ‘Shaw. London’. Thomas Shaw was a common military button manufacturer in London between 1807 - 1829. This narrows down the button's date range to 1807 (the beginning of Shaw's operations) - 1823 (the merging of the troops and subsequent loss of the independent Watlington Troop) and completes the local tale and history trapped within this artefact.
We certainly enjoyed taking Tom out for the day with us and helping him unearth some great little artefacts that revealed some truly fascinating local history for him. But what did he think?
Roman Found: So Tom, has today been everything that you expected, did anything surprise you?
Tom Ayling: To be honest, I didn’t know what to expect from a metal detecting festival, but I was blown away by the scale of the event - with so much land on offer to detect on and plenty of detectorists to try and cover it over the weekend! Added to this, I was blown away by the sheer quantity of incredible artefacts found by everyone - it seemed like nobody went away empty handed or without a story to tell.
RF: What did you find the most challenging aspect to the experience?
TA: I’m sure I was like most newbies, enthusiastically digging every partial signal early on in the day - and that’s incredibly rewarding when you get a little run of finds, but equally can be demoralising when you end up digging up nothing. So tuning my ear in to recognise good signals was really important in staying motivated (and conserving energy). What really helped with this was running my detector over things you both found, so that I got used to what a really clear genuine signal sounded like.
RF: Did you find any unexpected parallels between metal detecting and your work as an antiquarian bookseller?
TA: It was exactly like being at a rare book fair - the same thrill of the chase, and the same little pockets of excitement when interesting things start happening. At a rare book fair, you might see a small scrum develop when rare incunabula start appearing in the corner of the room. And it felt just the same when we were getting messages about roman coins coming up in certain fields, and then having to hare over to cover the ground!
RF: What was your favourite thing that you found?
TA: I love the military button I found - as an antiquarian bookseller it’s music to my ears when artefacts have text on them, and the inscriptions on the button meant I could go away and date and locate it!
But I was also really pleased with the belt mount you helped me identify. When I first found it I didn’t think much of it, it just looked like a kite-shaped token of some description. But when we were reviewing some of the footage of the day, it jumped out to you as something much more interesting than just that! Luckily I’d kept everything, so it was good to learn early on that such objects can contain hidden depths.
RF: And finally will you be picking up the metal detector again or have we put you off for life?
TA: Oh definitely. I think I was lucky to not be camping at Detectival on the Friday night, as the monsoon may have scared me off before I even found my first target! I’ve already been out detecting again, and am looking forward to the next Detectival in the autumn!
Want to learn more about Tom’s world as an Antiquarian Book seller? Read his Finders Stories Interview here
