How to Research Farm History for Metal Detecting

By David Villanueva

While I would never turn down the opportunity of metal detecting on any land, as nobody knows what might have been lost or buried anywhere in the past, if we habitually search sites where nothing much ever happened then usually our find bags will contain nothing much! Site research not only results in more and better quality finds but also provides some reasons as to why we find things where we do, which adds interest and a sense of history to our fascinating hobby. With this in mind, when I was invited to search a farm well outside of my usual patch I knuckled down to some simple research to make best use of my detecting time. An article titled ‘Researching Farm History’, based on this research, was published in Treasure Hunting Magazine, September 2012 and a short version is included in my book: Metal Detecting Made Easy. In the meantime there has been some material changes in some of the resources described which warrants a new edition.
If you are a detectorist who would like to hone your skills in researching the history of farms you are already metal detecting or would like to be searching (since presenting a landowner with the history of his land is likely to result in search permission) then this book is for you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Villanueva
• Release date: Mar 19, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005778705

David Villanueva

David Villanueva (1951- ) was born in Birmingham, England, where he grew up. In the early 1970s his mother bought him a copy of Ted Fletcher's book A Fortune Under Your Feet, which, together with David's great interest in history inspired him to buy a metal detector and take up treasure hunting as a hobby. Family stories about the origins and history behind David's Spanish surname also spawned the hobby of genealogy. A career move brought David to Whitstable in Kent, England, and it was here that David's love of history research developed into great success both in metal detecting and family history research. A little later David felt the urge to put pen to paper and started writing articles for the two British metal detecting magazines - Treasure Hunting and The Searcher – which have published more than two dozens of David's articles between them. Success in writing articles soon led to David's first book: The Successful Treasure Hunter's Essential Dowsing Manual: How to Easily Develop Your Latent Skills to Find Treasure in Abundance, published in both digital format and paperback. To date, David has written over a dozen books in the metal detecting, treasure hunting and family history genres.

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How to Research Farm History for Metal Detecting

David Villanueva

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I have said it before and I’ll say it again: if you search land where nothing much happened in the past then your finds bag will contain nothing much! So when I was offered the chance to search a farm in the neighbouring county of Sussex, UK, I heeded my own words and knuckled down to some serious research. I have shelves full of books and draws full of maps covering my own county of Kent but on foreign soil, as it were, I had little information. Where do you start? Start at the present time with what is already known or rumoured.

The farm manager told me the farmhouse was a former manor house dating back to the 13th century; there was a 16th century oast house and ancient watermill adjacent to the land, which was crossed by the pilgrims’ way. All interesting stuff but it is wise to verify what you are told, while not arguing with your host, of course.