Sunday saw a group of us meet with Rectory Wood with Neil Stevens and some of his colleagues, to do a metal detecting survey of the wood, with the aim of finding what traces of the 101st Airborne occupation of the area remain.
We only have time to survey about half the area, and will definitely return for another session.
There is much work to be done cleaning, cataloging, and mapping finds, so more details will be available later. We can though give a brief summary of what was found…
- Spent .303 and carbine cartidges
- A possible WWII era buckle
- Building debris from nissen huts and a stove
- A plowshare – probably dating from the 19th century of before
- Various nails and other bit of iron
- A sack of litter was also removed
But the star find of the day (if a bit scary) was a live .50 caliber armour piercing round
This was removed from the site and handled to the Police (if you ever find a live cartidge, it best to leave it where it is and call them, if that’s not safe or possible, store it in water and leave in a quiet safe place and then call them).
We would like to thank the Parish Council for granting their permission for the survey to take place.
