These two miniature portraits of Mary Stuart and Francois , Dauphin of France are part of a series of the family of Henri II and Catherine de’Medicis.
In this miniature she is represented in a rich black dress , slashed with white and wearing a black hat or bonnet- a l’Italienne with diamond ornaments and white feather
When you have located a target and then pinpointed it with the search coil, the last thing you want to do is damage the find by digging and hitting it with your spade or trowel.
Its best to start digging about 6 inches away from the target and dig towards the spot of maximum signal strength.
Some detectorists use electronic probes – these are hand held detectors which are useful when searching – they enable you to locate a find within a hole without unnecessary digging.
For grassland its worth investing in a sharp knife to remove a plug of soil around a signal (but be aware of the law concerning offensive weapons!)
If your signal disappears when you dig, check that the find has not slipped back into the hole – or that it is not stuck on the back of your spade. Anomalous signals can be caused by pieces of coke or loose cabling on your detector.
You should always fill the holes in afterwards – many landowners make this a condition when giving permission to detectorists to search their land. Unfilled holes can be dangerous to livestock – always make a point of leaving the site in the condition you found it.
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| Mary Stuart – Coins and Jewellery | |
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| Enamelled Gold locket with miniatures identified as Mary Queen of Scots and James VI , with another portarit of a man inside – late 16th century | Silver Ryal ( 30 shillings Scots) struck in 1565 to commemorate the marriage of Mary, Queen of Scots and Henry, Lord Darnley. These coins were withdrawn from circulation almost immediately |
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| Enamelled locket with a cameo of Mary , late 16th century, |
| the artist is Francois Clouet (before 1522-1572).This portrait is held in the archive collection of the National Portrait Gallery.
This was probably commissioned around the time of Mary’s marriage to Francois, Dauphin of France. Mary was married at the age of 15 years and 4 months in Notre Dame at Paris, In this drawing only the head alone is finished – the rest being shown in faint outline. |
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| Treasure in the Field by Mary Chester-Kadwell |
Metal-detecting started to become a popular hobby in the 1970s when lighter and less expensive machines became available. Since then it has become a pastime that enthrals all ages, including children who go out detecting with their families at the weekend, and retired people enjoying the exercise and excitement through the week. At the moment there are probably about 30,000 active detector users in England. That’s a lot of people, and a lot of finds – probably about 400,000 a year!
Finds can be from almost any period in history when they had metal. This means you could find a lead shot ball (from a gun) from 300 years ago, a Roman coin from 2000 years ago, or even a rare Bronze Age axe head from 3000 years ago! The main problem is telling this exciting treasure from all the rubbish, because the soil is stuffed full of bits of agricultural machinery and rusty iron nails. Luckily, that’s quite easy to do because most metal-detectors have what’s called a ‘discriminator’ which can tell whether the metal is iron, bronze, or even gold. But despite that, metal-detecting isn’t really about treasure in the usual sense. It isn’t all gold jewellery and pieces of eight.
Most of the things that detectorists find are broken, rusty or corroded, and quite small, but that doesn’t mean they have little value. All finds have the potential to tell us about where people lived or were buried in the past, what they were doing and why. Artefacts may also be beautiful because of the quality of the craftsmanship or fascinating because they are very different from the modern objects we are used to seeing today. As with many things, the value is in the eye of the beholder.
| Metal-detecting is quite easy to do. It’s possible to buy a metal-detector for as little as £100, though the most expensive ones can be anything up to £800. You just have to have a lot of patience and a strong arm because you might be waving the detector over the land for hours! The hard part is getting permission to use someone’s land, because without that permission you’re breaking the law. In fact, during the 1980s, there was a massive campaign to make metal-detecting completely illegal, as it is in many other countries. This is because some archaeologists considered metal-detecting to be ‘stealing heritage’, and they even suggested detectorists were ‘pillagers’. |  |
It is still true that some people raid fields and even archaeological sites with metal-detectors in the middle of the night, leaving giant holes, and stealing objects. It is very difficult to know how many of these people there are, but they probably number in the thousands. Only a few are ever caught and brought to justice. However there are also many law-abiding detector users who enjoy the discovery of ancient artefacts, learning about history, and having fun together.
All this fuss in the 1980s eventually lead to the Treasure Act in 1996 which, among other things, set up the Portable Antiquities Scheme to make it easier for the law-abiding detectorists to report their objects. There is a Portable Antiquities Scheme Officer for each county, and they borrow objects for recording, making a description and a photograph or drawing available on their online database: www.finds.org.uk. This site can be searched by anyone – try it! This means that everyone can have a chance to enjoy the objects, rather just the person who found it. What happens to the artefacts is then up to the owner, but at least some of the information about the objects will be saved for future generations, because once these finds are gone, they will never be replaced.
It’s thought that in about 30 years time, those archaeological sites that are currently in ploughed fields will be gone, churned up in the soil, scattered and broken down into tiny pieces. No more treasure. The past will be lost. So in a way, the law-abiding metal-detectorists are doing everyone a favour by recovering the artefacts that would otherwise be ploughed away. Some of the most dedicated detector users even work closely with archaeologists to uncover sites such as Anglo-Saxon cemeteries from 1500 years ago in order that they can be properly looked at and recorded. It’s such a shame that, as with all things that promise gold, there will always be those who are only interested in how much they can sell the objects for and will willingly destroy sites to get at them. By stealing these objects they prevent other people from enjoying them. The thieves are so preoccupied with treasure and financial value they forget that other people treasure and value these objects too.
First published in the Streetwise magazine with the theme of ‘treasure’, December 2004
Mary Chester Kadwell website and information
This small portrait in miniature is one of the ornamental paintings in the illuminated “Livred’ Heures” (Book of Hours) which belonged to Catherine de’ Medicis the mother in law of Mary Stuart.
It shows Francois, Dauphin of France and Mary Stuart.
This is part of a series of portraitts of all the children of Henri II and Catherine de’Medicis and the wives of those who were then married.
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Drawing of Mary Queen of Scots as Queen of France in widows dress by Francois Clouet (before 1522-1572). From this drawing are derived various portraits in oil. In this she is wearing white morning habit. The “deuil blanc” consists of a wired cap fitting tight around the hood, and pressed down on the flat crown of the head so as to leave space above the ears for the hair to show in bunches of curls. |
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The Scottish Register is likely to include a wider range of engagements than the English list, which only includes major battles (not skirmishes) whose boundaries can be defined. The Scottish version is expected to range from well-defined battles such as Bannockburn or Culloden (1746) to those with only broadly understood locations such as Largs on the Clyde estuary, where Norse power was defeated by a Scots army in 1263. It will also contain some minor skirmishes which formed part of a longer conflict, such as that between the McLeods and MacDonalds of Skye
Battles where there is no convincing evidence will be excluded
This may disappoint some campaigners, whose pressure has recently stopped development at the alleged sites of two `patriotic’ battles which historians believe did not take place – the Scots king Kenneth MacAlpin’s victory over the Picts supposedly at Stirling in 843, and the `Battle of William Wallace’s Tree’ near Glasgow, where the 13th century Braveheart hero is said to have woken up to find himself attacked by five armed thugs whom he beat off with his bare hands.Genuine battlefields affected by unsightly new buildings include Prestonpans (1745) in East Lothian which is now covered by industrial development and a railway line.Bannockburn, near Stirling, is currently threatened by a mixed housing and industrial scheme, while holiday chalets have been proposed for Sherrifmuir, also near Stirling.
According to Noel Fojut at Historic Scotland, once a draft register has been drawn up it will go to the Scottish Parliament for approval. `They will then have to decide whether we need any new legislation to make it work,’ he said
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Michelham Priory and Pevensey Castle report by Mark MacManus photos by Ron Strutt |
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| On 12 April 2003, the Cantiaci TTFF invaded East Sussex, with a mandate to explore a Priory and a Castle. Attendees on this auspicious occasion were Alison, Andrew, Anne, Chris, Jacqui, Mark, Ron, Shaun and Tracey. Accompanying minors were Charlotte, Emily, Harry, Isabel, Lucas and Susan. | |
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Our first visit was to Michelham Priory. It was founded in 1229 by Gilbert d’Aquila as the Augustinian Priory of the Holy Trininty, and canons were brought in from the Priory at Hastings to set it up. Close to the highway |
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| The most distinctive Prior was John Leem, who was in charge from 1374 to 1417. A close ally of John of Gaunt, he acted as Receiver for the Duke of Lancaster in the County of Sussex. However, Leem’s successors presided over growing disrepute, with evidence in 1441-2 and 1478 of non-observance of rules of silence, canons frequenting local pubs, and one member of the order having an affair with a local woman. | |
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| The Priory was dissolved in 1537 and sold to John Foote in 1556. He modified the western range, which was further extended by the Pelhams after 1587. In 1601 the Sackville family purchased the property and it remained in their ownership for 300 years, being let to tenant farmers. Michelham remained in use as a working farm until the middle of the 20th century, when it was acquired in trust by the Sussex Archaeological Society. | |
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| Our visit started with the imposing gatehouse, 60 feet high and straddling the longest medieval moat in the country. On a wall on the first floor is a plan of the Dieppe Raid of August 1942, drawn by Canadian troops who were stationed at the Priory. We next wandered around the farmyard, which contains a working bakery as well as small museums devoted to Ropes and Wheelwrights. | |
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| The Great Barn dominates this area, but was out of bounds due to the impending arrival of a rather opulent looking wedding party. From there we set off across the formal gardens which, apart from containing an interesting range of statuary, also contains the excavated ground plan of the original Priory church. We crossed the moat and ambled along a Nature Trail to an area containing reconstructed Iron Age roundhouses. These represented an interpretation of archaeological investigation into a genuine site near Ashford and, while lacking the wattle-and-daub ‘completeness’ of sites like Butser, were still good examples of their type. Our stroll back to the Priory worked up an appetite so we stopped in the restaurant for light refreshment. | |
| Next up, the Tudor Wing built by the Pelhams. Its entrance is the 13th Century undercroft, the only surviving part of the original Priory still above ground. The rooms in the Tudor wing are miniature museums in their own right, laid out in various historical styles from Tudor to an 18th Century child’s bedroom. Wood panelling along the staircase, restored after a fire in the 1920’s, contains a secret compartments from which one can hear
conversations in the undercroft below! |
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| Our group briefly split after Michelham. While the majority adjourned to Pevensey and the warmth of the Royal Oak pub, Ron jumped on his bicycle and I took a detour to Wilmington for a look at the Long Man hillfigure. He had grown a pair of eyes and, to the right of his head, the word ‘peace’. We reconvened, after lunch, at Pevensey Castle. | |
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| Because of its strategic position, Pevensey has been a fortified site since at least 335, when ANDERITVM, the youngest of the Saxon Shore forts was constructed. Unusual in its ovoid plan, as this chain of forts are otherwise square or rectangular, it today provides the best example of Roman fort walls in the Cantiaci TTFF’s territory. It gained notoriety in archaeological circles when two stamped tiles, dating to Honorius, were found to have been forged by Charles Dawson during digs in 1907. | |
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| The site was mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as the scene of a massacre of native Britons by invading Saxons in 491, but nothing more is recorded until 1066, when William of Normandy’s invading army made straight for the safety of the fort walls after their landing. | |
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| Following the Norman Conquest the site was granted to Robert of Mortain, and the medieval Castle was gradually constructed in the SE corner of the fort. Its strategic postion led to several sieges over the next few centuries, and it was slighted by King John in 1216. Later rebuilt, it was provided with a gun emplacement – still visible – in 1588 as protection against the Armada, although by this time Pevensey had ceased to function as a castle and was being used as a state prison. The most recent additions to the Castle were during WW2, when pillboxes and machine gun posts were set in the walls. | |
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| It’s a breezy site, thanks to the wind driving across the Pevensey Levels, and the sun we experienced at Michelaham had now been replaced by cloud and a light smattering of rain. None of this dampened the enthusiasm of the younger members of the group for exploring the dungeons, bastions and siege artillery at the site. My favourite spot is a corner overlooking the carpark, where one can see three periods of construction in the same place – Roman, Medieval, and WW2, a superb example of historical continuity at the Castle. One niggle is the paucity of interpretation : EH do not seem to have got round to providing a guide book for the Castle, and the audio tour – while very good – is not particularly suitable for those of us who have to keep an eye on children. |
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| A busy and tiring day – especially for Ron, I would imagine, cycling across the South Downs between sites – but well worth it for two inspiring sites. My thanks to all who turned up to make it the largest Cantiaci meet since Rochester, and my commiserations to those who missed out!
Next up – Ightham Mote? Time will tell… |
