South Lancs and Cheshire Metal Detecting Club - Combermere Abbey Rally Report

The South Lancs and Cheshire Metal Detecting Club.

Report from ~ Combermere Abbey Rally - 18th April 2004

...courtesy of Bri' and Mo'

The weather didn't look very promising when myself and Mo' set out for Combermere Abbey. It was raining hard, and the forecast wasn't good. However, it had stopped by the time we arrived at Combermere and it only rained once for a few minutes all day.

An estimated 150-200 detectorists arrived for the dig. One bloke travelled all the way from Essex. We had about 100+ acres of grassland to go at, some of which had been ploughed in the past few years. It looked a promising site, huge trees adorned the parkland, some of which were obviously extremely old.

Myself and Mo' found nothing special really but it was good to be in such a lovely setting along with many of our own club members and members of the UK DETECTOR NET forum.

We saw about 12 or 15 hammered coins, most of which were large coins such as groats and sixpences from the Tudor period. We won't say who got what in case it jeopardises anyone's votes chances on the finds table this month. Suffice to say that out of the coins found by everyone attending, our club members obviously got their fair share of the goodies.

Other finds included 2 18th century silver seal matrixes, a piece of a papal bullae and a rumoured gold hammered coin.

The rally entrance fee also entitled you to a free tour of the house, part of which dated back to 1503. The tour was interesting and what Mo' and I found fascinating was the amount of soil movement that occured during the design of the grounds and surrounds. Apparently the Georgian gardeners built hills, extended lakes and moved trees to create just the right outlook for the owners of the house.

The Crewe and Nantwich club are hoping to gain permission for more land on which to hold more rallies. We for one, would go back there. It was great day and if you walked over the right spot there were many good finds to be made.

By the way Sir Cotton when given the old abbey by Henry VIII was also given 26,000 acres... Lucky beggar !!

STOP PRESS! - STOP PRESS! - STOP PRESS!

Apparently, within five minutes of starting the Rally someone located a 'live' hand grenade. The area was taped off immediately and the local police officer arrived to 'mind it' until the bomb squad arrived.

They arrived about 2-3 hours later and one of the squad (with only his fatigues on for protection) proceeded to prod in the hole with what looked like a screwdriver and then took the thing away.

The area was opened up again to detectorists but thankfully no more were found.

There are photos and further info on Uk Detector Net of the bomb squad van and the soldier making safe the grenade.