Journalist,
author and veteran metal detectorist Mark Davison wowed the crowd at this
month's L&DLHS lecture in the Letherhead Institute as he showed some of the
incredible finds he has made during decades of digging in fields outside
Dorking.
Mark,
who has worked for the Leatherhead
Advertiser since the 1970s and written countless books on Surrey as well as
his pet hobby, has also been supplying the British Museum
The
devices themselves have risen in value from just £30 when he started to £900
today and have located rare ancient coins as well as medieval and slightly more
recent ones up to a foot below the soil of fields. Although previously buried
deeper, he suggested that some finds might have been disturbed over the
centuries by burrowing moles and brought nearer the surface.
More
than 1000 items Mark has found over the years were recorded for future researchers
by the late David Williams, head of Surrey 's
Portable Antiquities Scheme, who was to have given the lecture on 16 February
but died suddenly in December. Mark stepped in late in the day in tribute to
him.
Gold
coins dating from an ancient British King around 2000 years ago and King George
III after 1760, silver ones from Marc Antony in 41BC, King Richard II after
1477 and William III in 1700, and many pennies, halfpennies and farthings from
across the centuries were among the finds shown.